Alrighty, part 3 of this 4-part miniseries on the World Trade Center station complex. The #1 line has its own station here, with out of system connections to the other stations (PATH & the 2/3/A/C/E/R/W stations). Located directly under the World Trade Center, it suffered a similar fate to the PATH station in the immediate fallout of the September 11th attacks – requiring a full rebuild.
So, I talked about how the Port Authority handled the attacks in that World Trade Center entry, but how did the MTA handle things? A subway operator, approximately a minute or so after the first plane striking, reported an explosion in the vicinity of the station and, from what I can find from accounts on Reddit, the train passing through at the time skipped the stop, the 1 line south of Chambers Street was evacuated entirely (no trains allowed) and eventually service was forced to turn at 14th Street. Later that day, at 10:20am, the system was shut down entirely for about 2 and a half hours – one of a small handful of times the system has ever seen a full shutdown (the others being during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, the January 2015 snowstorm, and the relatively small amount of full city blackouts and union strikes over the years. However, as a result of 9/11, though, various service changes kicked in and it’d take a while for full service to be restored to Lower Manhattan, among these changes including the 1 line going to New Lots, quite possibly the only time in NYC Subway history that it’s ever entered Brooklyn, along with other unusual stuff like the E running via the C in Brooklyn (the C was not running), the J to Bay Ridge, and the Q to Forest Hills(????) (the R was not running). Yeah, things were weird. Eventually, though, by late 2002, everything was relatively normal again. Cortlandt Street on the 1, however, wouldn’t reopen until 2018. And, thus, brings things to the modern day.
The station is an accessible and rather modern MTA subway station, consisting of two side platforms, benches, wastebaskets, the usual affair. Elevators also exist, making this station fully accessible. There also exists an exit that dumps you out right into the Oculus. There’s (if I’m remembering right) also an OMNY machine and a station agent, along with modern countdown clocks and an underpass connecting the two platforms. Overall, not a terrible station, if I say so myself. There’s also a marble mural on the wall, which from what I can find has words from both the US’s Declaration of Independence and the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights. Overall though, not a bad station!
The good: It’s modern, it’s accessible, and serves a major location in lower Manhattan. There’s also connections to quite a few buses and (out of system) other lines. It’s also a direct connection to the Oculus and Twin Tower.
The bad: Not big on the Oculus personally, but that’s beyond the scope of this.
Nearby points of interest: The World Trade Center. Duh.
Transit connections:
7th Ave. (1)
MTA bus (M9, M20, M22, M55, BM1, BM2, BM3, BM4, BxM18, QM7, QM8, QM11, QM25, SIM1, SIM1C, SIM2, SIM3, SIM3C, SIM4, SIM4C, SIM4X, SIM32, SIM34, X27, X28)
NJT bus (120)
Yeah, it’s got all the same connections, bus-wise, as Chambers St./WTC on the A/C/E lines.
Overall though, it’s not a bad station. It doesn’t serve anything unique to its walkshed, but sometimes, that isn’t a bad thing. And, this is one instance where it isn’t bad.
Rating: 9/10
