PATH's New World Trade Center Station

WTC PATH station, with 1
World Trade Center in the background 

Fifteen years in (re-)construction (and it's still not finished), at a cost of $4 billion dollars (and it's still not finished), the main hall of the PATH's new World Trade Center station main's building, designed by starchitect Santiago Calatrava, is on the cusp of opening. But the entire hub is, unaccountably, still not finished. Incomplete or not, it is worth an ogle, and I did so on Tuesday on my way back from an appointment in the city.

The external form of the main hall, or Oculus, retains some aspects of Calatrava's original design, though his plan for a retractable roof, much like bird's wings, gave way to a rigid white steel exoskeleton, with additional security features. Its interior consists of a vast, marble-floored hall surrounded by ribbed arches, as if it were the evacuated belly of some immense white alien. I immediately thought of the movie Prometheus, which seems like a belated influence. 

The Oculus mirrors the futuristic ossuary-like maze of corridors, which I have featured in the past in some random photos, that connect the station to other buildings like Brookfield Place and West Street. As I walked around the atrium space and snapped photos, I did not see many people (as the photos make clear), but I suppose they will start arriving once the shops open and the exits at Vesey Street and Church Street open up.

The headline of critic Michael Kimmelman's New York Times critique of the building, linked above, refers to it as a boondoggle. Yet he does initially praise the Oculus's eye-catching space.  But he concludes that, given its cost, lack of functionality, and insignificance in the New York-New Jersey public transportation system, this glorified vanity sculpture project represents a failure of multiple kinds, as well as a waste of public funds. (Where did all that money go?) 

I know I may sound churlish, but I actually liked the PATH's rough hewn temporary station, which opened not long after the 9/11 attacks. It eventually closed and instead, the site turned into a cardboard-lined warren whose navigability seemed geared to train rats. Given the number of New Yorkers who may find themselves displaced in coming years and undertaking a move to New Jersey, the transit officials probably should do everything they can to ensure that the hub will be able to accommodate as many travelers as possible.

When it will be completed remains a question; the original 5-year-estimate has been exceeded by an order of 3, so perhaps by 2020 or 2025, barring Manhattan being inundated by rising sea water, it will be done. Also, when the connections with the MTA's lines will be open also isn't clear. As confusing as the old WTC station (pre-9/11) was, you could exit the PATH and head directly to the 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., with an array of shops dotting the way. Not today, though. All of that is apparently coming soon. 

The station is worth seeing, though, especially before all that white turns gray and then black (which might have been more appropriate given the graveyard and memorial next door), especially if you don't have to travel through the station during rush hour, and it isn't raining or snowing outside. I can say from experience that all that marble flooring is extremely slippery, like a mid-winter lake rink, making it a major hazard, which I imagine someone must have considered before laying down so much of it, but perhaps they didn't. It looks pretty, though, and that appears to be all that matters, whatever the costs.

Part of the soaring white spine 

The path past the PATH station to the
9/11 Memorial 

Approaching the Oculus, from inside the station

The Oculus, with the skylight visible

The skylight

Another view 

Towards the WTC PATH trains

The Snowstorm (Thundarsnortex)

Cold I was expecting. For the last few days the weather forecasters were predicting temperatures in the mid-20s and lower for this upcoming week, the first of the new spring semester, so I have made sure to have longjohns, ski gloves and cap, a heavy wool scarf, and other Chicago-level weather essentials ready. Then, yesterday, I think C and I caught an evening news broadcast that announced a major storm would be blowing through, beginning in the afternoon. Major it is, but the thundersnow arrived in Jersey City this morning.  Snow has steadily fallen, horizontally, and by noon I received an email alerting me that after 3 pm all Rutgers campuses would close for the day.

The university is supposed to open tomorrow at 10 am. We'll see. If the still-falling snow and polar vortex conditions--thundarsnortex, I think Gothamist labeled it--continue, I may not teach my first class until Thursday. A snowplow has visited our street twice so far, a very good sign, but this afternoon I took the light rail, which was running without a hitch, to downtown, to make sure it was running in preparation for tomorrow, hit the post office, and get out and about. The main streets also appear to be ploughed but outside those, here downtown, some of the streets remain untouched. The snowfall is so thick that it's enfolding the tops of our local skyscrapers and lower a curtain such that you cannot even see a yard across the Hudson. Somehow, though, the seabirds, soaring in undulating lines across the water's shirring surface, know where they're heading.


The Hudson River, with its head of snow (Manhattan, usually visible, is straight ahead)
Exchange Place, looking toward the ferry terminal to Manhattan
The parking lot near Harsimus cove
 
Near Exchange Place
 
The light rail platform and tracks

iPhone Drawings

The fall semester is over, grades are in, and I am taking a little mental break. It has been a while since I posted any iPhone drawings, but then I hadn't done many in a while. Here are a few recent ones; I guess these constitute my purple or violet period, with some more filled out versions of very fast line drawings. (I do the filling out mostly in real time, though.) All are my usual life sketches/portraits, on the various forms of public transportation I take (light rail, PATH, NY subway, etc.). I have yet to sketch anyone on the Newark light rail/subway, though, perhaps because my trip is so brief. I'll have to take it all the way to the end of the line(s) and draw some of the people I see. Newark doesn't lack for interesting subjects for portraits. I also have to return to drawing on the iPad, which has a larger screen. The software for it changed, though, so it's less agile, at least to my fingertips, than the iPhone version.

Random Photos

These weeks, barreling forward like a freight train! When I am not teaching or reading and marking up student essays (in a writing intensive class, so I have quite a few), I try to get out and about. A few photos from my recent peregrinations.

On Halloween morning 

Restaurant menu (on the ground; is there
a secret trapdoor to an eatery below?)

Part of the audience at Reggie Harris's
book party at Poets House

Poet, librarian, literary activist
Reggie Harris, reading from Autogeography

Voting day in Newark

On the train to Newark

Our Rutgers-Newark campus newspaper,
featuring yours truly with Gbenga Akinnagbe
(h/t to Fran Bartkowski for alerting me
to this and for collecting a few copies
on my behalf)

West Village, at night
(the Freedom Tower is visible
in the distance, the construction
scaffolds and barriers visible all around)

An artist painting in the chill, West Village

The contemporary US human condition, on a smartphone

Even the sidewalk is a vintage fan

Shoes--whose?

At Joe, in Chelsea

Night shot, 23rd St.

More skyscrapers rising, Jersey City

Building site, Jersey City

Christa Paravani, Rutgers-Newark
alumna and burgeoning literary star,
reading at Writers @ Newark series

Jayne Anne Phillips, Rutgers-Newark MFA
director, with Writers @ Newark readers
Anthony "Tony" Swofford, author
of Jarhead, and his wife,
Christa Paravani, author of Her

Homemade olive bread
(very therapeutic and perfect
for the colder weather)

Seeking a wife, on the stairs
of the New York Public Library

Pop-up shop, Bryant Park

Pop-up gallery (coming), West Village

Casting call, on the street, Chelsea

Pop-up shop, Chelsea Market

A bevy of birthday balloons for this brownstone 

Still waiting for Word, Jersey City

The Washington Square Arch

Random Photos

Masked man, on the subway

Fashion shoot, Midtown
(I never tire of these shots--sorry!)

Busker, Greenwich Village

Something glamorous unfolding, near NYU

Man fishing food out of the garbage can,
near the now-luxe Bowery

Asleep, midday, Midtown

Emerging from the 8th Avenue subway

A scale model of the proposed transformation
of the NYPL Research Branch at 42nd St.

Guardsman, waiting for the light rail

In an arcade, Midtown

On the steps of the Main Post Office,
with Penn Station in the background

New construction, East Village

Homeless ex-con, who went on a
racial (anti-white) tirade, PATH train

(Ras) Baraka for Mayor sticker,
Newark subway/light rail

Hoboken PATH Station Reopens

It has taken almost 7 weeks but Hoboken's PATH station, a key portion of its overall rail hub system, has finally reopened, with limited daily service from 5 am to 10 pm, and train service to Manhattan's 33rd St. PATH station. The direct line between Hoboken and World Trade Center, whose line to Newark resumed last week, remains closed.

For New Jersey residents who commute for work or school, or who just want affordable and convenient options to get to New York City, for New Yorkers who work or study on the NJ side of the Hudson, and for tourists who lodge at more economical NJ hotels, to name just three sets of potential riders, the return of service is a boon.

I snapped some photos of the light rail area and the rest of the station, some of which show the tropical storm's lingering, devastating aftermath, while others display the renovations and cosmetic improvements that have occurred over the last few months. I pray the businesses that are still shuttered reopen. Soon.

A decorative tile now gracing the light rail platform

One of the landline phone booths (during the storm
the landlines proved invaluable and cell service
often nonexistent)

A new sculpture/bench, still
inaccessible to commuters

Gulls sunning themselves in tranquility

Inside the railway station (temporary information
and ticket booths are visible at right)

The liquor store, still closed

The train platforms, mostly
back to regular form

Hudson News, still closed

The grand waiting room, closed off
but mostly cleaned and in very good shape

One of the convenience booths,
back open, and more ticket trailers

The exposed ceiling heading
to the PATH platform looks like
it still could use more repairs

Inside the Hoboken PATH station
which looks mostly back to normal

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone