(E) connection returning to the WTC next week!

[Porter]

 

The good news is you won't have to wait much longer. The E train entrance will open on Dec. 19, providing a direct link from PATH to the E train, said a Port Authority spokesman.

 

...

 

Port Authority officials corrected their original directions to access the passageway to the E Train, where they said passengers would have to head toward 4 World Trade Center.

From the PATH, passengers would walk up the steps to the Oculus and then take an escalator to the second level. The passageway to the E is in the northeast corner, near Tower 2, officials said.

 

http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/12/when_will_the_e_train_be_connected_to_wtc_hub.html

 

Please note that this is the original connection, not the new ADA-compliant entrance that will connect directly to 2WTC (which might not open until the returns, anyway).

 

It's been many years since this connection was possible. I actually had the experience of using the original connection back in 2008 when I first moved to NYC:

 

[LTA1992]

There's no way 2 WTC will open around the time Cortlandt Street reopens. 2 WTC hasn't begun being constructed above street level and won't until they get enough tenants.

[bobtehpanda]

I hope they've redone the entrance to make it more consistent with the rest of the Oculus... that entrance looks straight out of 1969

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I hope they've redone the entrance to make it more consistent with the rest of the Oculus... that entrance looks straight out of 1969

Agreed.  It looks downright awful and depressing, not to mention dingy.  Needs an upgrade for sure based on those photos.

[Porter]

I hope they've redone the entrance to make it more consistent with the rest of the Oculus... that entrance looks straight out of 1969

Agreed.  It looks downright awful and depressing, not to mention dingy.  Needs an upgrade for sure based on those photos.

 

No need to worry! That chunk of the original "Mall at the World Trade Center" was demolished once the first temporary PATH entrance on Church & Vesey closed. Aside from the dismally dated aesthetics, that original corridor connected to a mall that was higher in elevation; the new mall is much lower in elevation, so new stairs going down had to replace the old stairs (and ramp) going up. I took a peak behind the construction wall, and yes, the whole thing is as pearly white as we'd expect.

 

Just on a random side-note, what the hell is up with the Fulton Center and World Trade Center giving the cold shoulder to the ? Those bullets are hardly seen anywhere down there...

 

There's no way 2 WTC will open around the time Cortlandt Street reopens. 2 WTC hasn't begun being constructed above street level and won't until they get enough tenants.

 

I meant that the 2WTC connection to the might not open until the Cortlandt does; obviously the tower itself will take figuratively forever. This ancillary entrance, unlike the main one that is scheduled to open on Monday, will be ADA-compliant, as the original entrance lacks the space for its own elevator (the 2WTC concourse is at-grade with the station, unlike the deeper balcony level of the Oculus, so no new elevators are needed). Here is a photograph that I snapped a few days ago from inside the 2WTC concourse (there will be additional retail space behind that temporary wall):

 

[Cait Sith]

I hope they've redone the entrance to make it more consistent with the rest of the Oculus... that entrance looks straight out of 1969

The new connection should be at the front of the train platform Queens-Bound, up the stairs and to the right(unless that's a pending connection to Fulton Center). They made a new entrance on Park Place & Church to accommodate the new connection, since that one got knocked down for construction previously.

[Porter]

The new connection should be at the front of the train platform Queens-Bound, up the stairs and to the right(unless that's a pending connection to Fulton Center). They made a new entrance on Park Place & Church to accommodate the new connection, since that one got knocked down for construction previously.

 

Up the stairs and to the right? From where?

 

I can tell you with utmost certainty that the first WTC entrance to open will be located exactly where the original one was, and the second will be perpendicular to it on the western wall not too far away. I'm not sure what's happening with the now-demolished "WTC newsstand & novelties" space, but I suppose it could hypothetically connect to the Fulton Center (although the original plans for such a connection were scrapped years ago). Otherwise, it could be a new retail lot, perhaps reoriented to face inside the WTC mall instead of the station. I hope it doesn't turn into a machine room or something...

[Cait Sith]

Up the stairs and to the right? From where?

 

I can tell you with utmost certainty that the first WTC entrance to open will be located exactly where the original one was, and the second will be perpendicular to it on the western wall not too far away. I'm not sure what's happening with the now-demolished "WTC newsstand & novelties" space, but I suppose it could hypothetically connect to the Fulton Center (although the original plans for such a connection were scrapped years ago). Otherwise, it could be a new retail lot, perhaps reoriented to face inside the WTC mall instead of the station. I hope it doesn't turn into a machine room or something...

 

You'll see it once you walk up the stairs, kinda hard to miss, especially if the blue construction wall is up there.

[Porter]

You'll see it once you walk up the stairs, kinda hard to miss, especially if the blue construction wall is up there.

 

Do you mean the stairs from the platforms themselves?

[Cait Sith]

Do you mean the stairs from the platforms themselves?

I normally use the so this is usually the way I go.

 

Front of the Queens-Bound platform from the , up the stairs, out of the turning gate and it should be around there. I'll get a pic tomorrow since I'll be around there.

[Porter]

I normally use the so this is usually the way I go.

 

Front of the Queens-Bound platform from the , up the stairs, out of the turning gate and it should be around there. I'll get a pic tomorrow since I'll be around there.

 

You'd probably be better off just waiting until Monday when it opens.

 

The platform is at-grade with the two WTC entrances, so I'm not sure how stairs could be involved.

[Porter]

No need to worry! That chunk of the original "Mall at the World Trade Center" was demolished once the first temporary PATH entrance on Church & Vesey closed.

 

Well, it looks like I was wrong. That section of the original mall has been preserved and will be incorporated into the new entrance:

 

[Lance]

On the one hand, I get why it was done. Preserve the legacy of the original World Trade Center, show the resiliency of New York in the face of tragedy and so on and so forth. On the other hand, it's a set of doors. Ugly ones that really don't fit into the design of the new WTC at that. It's not as though we don't already have a multitude of things to commemorate the lives lost on that day in and around the area. And seriously, how long do you think it's going to take before the glass on those doors break? I'm all for honoring the victims and all that, but this seems a little excessive. And really, a plaque for when FEMA searched the area and spray-painted one of the doors? Again, excessive.

[Porter]

And really, a plaque for when FEMA searched the area and spray-painted one of the doors? Again, excessive.

 

No one will think you a Scrooge for saying it: it's flat-out ridiculous. If they really cared so much about a passing relic of the post-9/11 recovery effort, they should have just ripped the door out and placed it downstairs in the museum (replacing it with a new one). Commuters need that door to be usable!

 

Also, just so no one is mislead, the only features of that "preserved" corridor that actually predate 9/11 are:

 

- the doors

- the floor/steps/ramp

- the handrails

- the two signs (barely)

 

The signs are actually from 2001, when all the signage throughout the mall, plaza, and surface streets were updated for a new spiffy look (courtesy of Westfield). They lasted only a few months in the complex before becoming museum-worthy.

 

 

The walls, ceiling, and lighting were completely redone, the payphones and illuminated directory ripped out, some columns stripped of their travertine panels and the black ones painted white.

 

The worst part about all this is that the rise in elevation—once necessary to land on the concourse floor—is now a pointless mound to step over. You have to ascend the steps (or now-useless ramp) only to descend again (a greater distance than would have otherwise been necessary). If they really wanted to make a statement with the preservation, fine, I like preservation, but they should have restored the original 1970 interior to its full "glory."

 

In my opinion, they should have saved only the doors (making the so-called 'relic' usable, spray paint or not), and demolished the rest. The low ceiling of the northern section of the corridor should have continued at-grade all the way to the mall (by which point the ceiling would no longer be low) and the rise in elevation should have been flattened out, allowing for fewer steps necessary to descend onto the concourse floor. Unfortunately, the Port Authority has the Midas 9/11 touch, rendering everything they "preserve" untouchable and sacred as a solid block of gold (even something so mundane and as post-9/11 rescue graffiti). Ironically, the biggest reason that this connection took so long to reopen was that they wanted the owners of WTC Newsstand & Novelties, the last surviving pre-9/11 retail space, to surrender their lease to the , which they did less than a month ago. It's almost as if the powers that be bled them dry until their business was no longer tenable, as some sort of space-grab, and only then decided to reopen the entrance. So much for meaningful preservation...

 

Here's a taste of the corridor from late 1997:

 

https://youtu.be/7mWERfgJAD4?t=41

[Porter]

Sorry for the double post, but this is significant:

 

According to an employee of the Federal Transit Administration, the former WTC Newsstand & Novelties space is being demolished to make way for a connection between the Chambers and Cortlandt stations. Such a free connection was proposed as a part of the Fulton Street Transit Center, but soon scrapped due to cost. The idea seems to have been revived, but I personally doubt that it will be a free transfer, considering the layout of the station. More likely, it seems to just be yet another entrance to the BMT Broadway southbound platform.

 

(thanks to BrIaNMeRcY1022 for passing the word along)

[Around the Horn]

Sorry for the double post, but this is significant:

 

According to an employee of the Federal Transit Administration, the former WTC Newsstand & Novelties space is being demolished to make way for a connection between the Chambers and Cortlandt stations. Such a free connection was proposed as a part of the Fulton Street Transit Center, but soon scrapped due to cost. The idea seems to have been revived, but I personally doubt that it will be a free transfer, considering the layout of the station. More likely, it seems to just be yet another entrance to the BMT Broadway southbound platform.

 

(thanks to BrIaNMeRcY1022 for passing the word along)

 

Is this just word of mouth?

[Porter]

Is this just word of mouth?

 

Quite literally, yes. BrIaNMeRcY1022 asked this FTA employee about it (on-site and in person) and he told him this news directly.

 

Here's his new video walk-through of the opening:

 

https://youtu.be/kDswiWz-kAs?t=279

[Eric B]

Is that what those doors on the level above the current exit to the are, with a sign saying something about a future entrance? (And one of the doors is cracked open, and you can see it leads to a bare wall). I had thought it might simply be a level exit directly to the southbound platform (like there was before. I take it, that was further south, since this is a place where there hadn't been an opening in the wall before). 

 

So it looks like the only thing blocking a free transfer is the exit on the east side. Don't know if they might try to reconfigure it to make the connection, otherwise, it would make no sense to create that separate passage behind the wall to where the newsstand was; you could just use what opened today and build the connection through the wall behind those other doors.

[Porter]

Ultimately, the southbound platform will have four portals:

 

1) Staircase and elevator connecting to the Dey Street Concourse [open]

2) Doors leading to the eastern end of the Oculus [closed]

3) Doors leading to the concourse beneath 4WTC [closed]

4) Corridor connecting to the Chambers Street Station [unbuilt]

[Porter]

Oops, make that five portals. I forgot about the pre-9/11 underpass to One Liberty Plaza, which is mostly intact (they really ought to renovate it, though):

 

[twarrior3dc]

Sorry for the double post, but this is significant:

 

According to an employee of the Federal Transit Administration, the former WTC Newsstand & Novelties space is being demolished to make way for a connection between the Chambers and Cortlandt stations. Such a free connection was proposed as a part of the Fulton Street Transit Center, but soon scrapped due to cost. The idea seems to have been revived, but I personally doubt that it will be a free transfer, considering the layout of the station. More likely, it seems to just be yet another entrance to the BMT Broadway southbound platform.

 

(thanks to BrIaNMeRcY1022 for passing the word along)

 

I am pretty sure that a free transfer between the was always planned and I did not realize it had been scrapped. I thought just the free transfer between the WTC stations and the Fulton Center stations was scrapped and made out of system connection instead. I am not sure how that would work though considering the are opposite ends of the Oculus and the  has the entire 2 WTC block in between it and the    .

[Porter]

I am not sure how that would work though considering the are opposite ends of the Oculus and the  has the entire 2 WTC block in between it and the    .

 

A free connection between the and wouldn't work, unless you were to allow commuters to swipe in again for free (bad idea, considering that they'd have to walk through the halls of materialistic temptation).

 

The 2WTC block does not separate the from the . The former location of WTC Newsstand & Novelties will serve as a perfect connection point to the east of 2WTC; the trick is making that connection free. The easiest way to make it free would be to require people entering from just outside the cemetery to swipe in at the landing of the staircase, severing a free connection to the mall in the process (I think it would be a worthwhile trade-off).

[paulrivera]

You would have to walk through Oculus to get between the and the . Not sure if there's a secret connection to the from the being built but I doubt it.

 

I would really like to know how the heck we're going to access the downtown platform when Cortlandt Street opens though... You can get to the uptown platform pretty easily but I don't see an easy way to the downtown platform...

[Porter]

I would really like to know how the heck we're going to access the downtown platform when Cortlandt Street opens though... You can get to the uptown platform pretty easily but I don't see an easy way to the downtown platform...

 

There are three sets of double-doors underneath the overpass on the north side of the mall. These doors provide access to both platforms of the Cortlandt station and a free underpass to switch between them within the fare zone.

 

[paulrivera]

There are three sets of double-doors underneath the overpass on the north side of the mall. These doors provide access to both platforms of the Cortlandt station and a free underpass to switch between them within the fare zone.

 

Ahh okay, good to know.

 

I still think the northbound side will have an advantage though, there seems to be an access point in one of the hallways that heads toward 4WTC... Unless that's going to be an emergency exit?