Ca si National Arena, un trofeu
Demeralda Flint, MI 6 hours ago
This again illustrates the vast and growing chasm between rich cities and the rest of us. We are begging for a paltry 55 million for clean drinking water.
My heart aches.
Claire Atkinson Hoboken 6 hours ago
The white marble is already mottled with coffee stains and trying to exit the Path platform up a staircase wide enough for one, reminds me that designers rarely live the reality they create. For passengers its an annoying single file shuffle to get back above ground.
It's an even greater shame that it isn't even really finished. Heartbreaking waste of tax payers money.
Bill Randle New York 6 hours ago
The WTC Hub, like numerous other post-9/11 funded projects and initiatives, was a cynical attempt by those holding the reins of power to throw money at our collective grief while taking advantage of the opportunity to fleece an already victimized populace. Any rational objections that stood in the way of using unlimited public funds to assuage our fear and confusion at having become a target of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history were summarily dismissed.
There are numerous, relatively well documented examples of those in power taking advantage of 9/11 to line their pockets, the pockets of friends and family, and the coffers of avaricious corporations. The WTC Hub is reminiscent of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which hundreds of billions of unaccounted dollars were spent by the Military Industrial Complex, and anyone who challenged where money went or merely requested accountability was deemed an unpatriotic traitor. Remember the suitcases full of cash supposedly destined for warlords that seemed to get lost with regularity?
Imagine what $4 billion could have done to help the poor and middle class in our city. How about constructing a few dozen low rent buildings for non-rich people to help fulfill the promise of making NYC accessible/livable for ordinary citizens?
So much good could have been done with that money, but instead we'll spend the rest of our lives glaring at the "boondoggle," when we happen to be in that part of town, which isn't often.
Alex Westchester 5 hours ago
Go beneath the facade of this 'monument' and Rotundra at Fulton Station and you will see the same dirty, crowded rat-infested subway station with peeling paint and lord know how many health violations packed 8 deep at rush hour.
Just imagine if a small portion of the billions of public money could have been used to make even the most basic repairs to most NYC subway stations used by the plebs who pay for this.
Nick G Hoboken, NJ 4 hours ago
What an unconscionable waste of money this station is. I ride the PATH every day, and I can't help but see this as a huge missed opportunity. Weekend trains are highly overcrowded due to the combination of the Journal Square and Hoboken lines, and they're even making noise about cutting overnight PATH service (which will save all of $8 million a year....or 1/500 of this monstrosity, however you prefer to remember it). This money could have been used to expand the PATH to uptown Hoboken, Weehawken, and points north, and to expand weekend service, which would have done far more of a public service than this. Calatrava's space is like a knick-knack - pretty to look at but functionally almost useless. The critic didn't even mention how the marble floors become treacherous when it rains or snows. Overall, this station is a triumph of form over function at the expense of things that could have actually helped many people. What a shame.
Fr. Bill Cambridge, Massachusetts 6 hours ago
Didn't they do any research? Calatrava's City of the Arts and Sciences in Valencia cost a fortune. In addition it is a maintenance nightmare. The WTC Transportation Hub is beautiful. Good luck keeping it clean.
A Los Angeles 5 hours ago
I'm an architect working on on of the retail stores in the Oculus, and I can say from direct experience that the Port Authority should shoulder a substantial portion of the blame for the cost overruns. It's a bloated, self-serving, arbitrary bureaucracy, filled with inspectors inspecting each other. It's so wasteful. NY/NJ needs to take a hard look at this organization after this mess.
Iver Thompson Pasadena, CA 3 hours ago
If I were rushing to catch a train, I do believe the last thing I'd want to see happen was for my jaw to drop open. All this fru-fru everywhere now in so-called architecture is just clumsy and extraneous kitsch, completely lacking in elegance and subtlety. Purely done out ego gratification and self indulgence on the part of the designer. A Roman column is beautiful, simple, elegant . . . and it holds the building up. All these modern soaring accessories just bloats the budget and is as functional to the content as is fancy and expensive wrapping paper on a cheap gift. Our own beloved Walt Disney Music Center here in LA and designed by Frank Gehry, embodies this syndrome perfectly. With people literally starving and homeless on the streets, this display of wasteful public self indulgence tells a lot about the state of our society. Just ask Rome, who made those columns.
Michael Boston, MA 3 hours ago
Overpriced and poorly managed it may have been--and I am sensitive to calls for investment in more practical and useful services--but I also believe that we as a country tend to under-invest in public works projects that are awe-inspiring and beautiful. While the costs should be better managed, the United States needs more of this kind of bold, beautiful, visionary use of public space. How dreary our lives are when all we have is grey, dull, square, utilitarian public buildings that serve their purpose but do not inspire.
George S New York, NY 3 hours ago
A monument to one man's ego, at the public's expense. Absurd to have wasted so much money, and a classic example why people have less and less trust in all levels of government, when cost overruns in the billions have become a yawn and "oh well".
Then factor in reality. Aside from it's nothing nearly busy enough to warrant the size (setting aside the grandiose design and wasted space), some other comments are spot on about those pretty but likely hazardous gleaming white floors. Which raises another point - white?? With the MTA's history of little to no maintenance and cleaning, how long before this goes from soaring dove to soiled dove, with gum stuck to the marble, leaks staining the walls, ceilings and the "oculus" (exemplifying our modern penchant for dreadful construction quality), graffiti, random stickers adhered to the walls, and the attainment of the same "patina" as every other station. What a waste of money and poor public design.
Demeralda Flint, MI 6 hours ago
This again illustrates the vast and growing chasm between rich cities and the rest of us. We are begging for a paltry 55 million for clean drinking water.
My heart aches.
Claire Atkinson Hoboken 6 hours ago
The white marble is already mottled with coffee stains and trying to exit the Path platform up a staircase wide enough for one, reminds me that designers rarely live the reality they create. For passengers its an annoying single file shuffle to get back above ground.
It's an even greater shame that it isn't even really finished. Heartbreaking waste of tax payers money.
Bill Randle New York 6 hours ago
The WTC Hub, like numerous other post-9/11 funded projects and initiatives, was a cynical attempt by those holding the reins of power to throw money at our collective grief while taking advantage of the opportunity to fleece an already victimized populace. Any rational objections that stood in the way of using unlimited public funds to assuage our fear and confusion at having become a target of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history were summarily dismissed.
There are numerous, relatively well documented examples of those in power taking advantage of 9/11 to line their pockets, the pockets of friends and family, and the coffers of avaricious corporations. The WTC Hub is reminiscent of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which hundreds of billions of unaccounted dollars were spent by the Military Industrial Complex, and anyone who challenged where money went or merely requested accountability was deemed an unpatriotic traitor. Remember the suitcases full of cash supposedly destined for warlords that seemed to get lost with regularity?
Imagine what $4 billion could have done to help the poor and middle class in our city. How about constructing a few dozen low rent buildings for non-rich people to help fulfill the promise of making NYC accessible/livable for ordinary citizens?
So much good could have been done with that money, but instead we'll spend the rest of our lives glaring at the "boondoggle," when we happen to be in that part of town, which isn't often.
Alex Westchester 5 hours ago
Go beneath the facade of this 'monument' and Rotundra at Fulton Station and you will see the same dirty, crowded rat-infested subway station with peeling paint and lord know how many health violations packed 8 deep at rush hour.
Just imagine if a small portion of the billions of public money could have been used to make even the most basic repairs to most NYC subway stations used by the plebs who pay for this.
Nick G Hoboken, NJ 4 hours ago
What an unconscionable waste of money this station is. I ride the PATH every day, and I can't help but see this as a huge missed opportunity. Weekend trains are highly overcrowded due to the combination of the Journal Square and Hoboken lines, and they're even making noise about cutting overnight PATH service (which will save all of $8 million a year....or 1/500 of this monstrosity, however you prefer to remember it). This money could have been used to expand the PATH to uptown Hoboken, Weehawken, and points north, and to expand weekend service, which would have done far more of a public service than this. Calatrava's space is like a knick-knack - pretty to look at but functionally almost useless. The critic didn't even mention how the marble floors become treacherous when it rains or snows. Overall, this station is a triumph of form over function at the expense of things that could have actually helped many people. What a shame.
Fr. Bill Cambridge, Massachusetts 6 hours ago
Didn't they do any research? Calatrava's City of the Arts and Sciences in Valencia cost a fortune. In addition it is a maintenance nightmare. The WTC Transportation Hub is beautiful. Good luck keeping it clean.
A Los Angeles 5 hours ago
I'm an architect working on on of the retail stores in the Oculus, and I can say from direct experience that the Port Authority should shoulder a substantial portion of the blame for the cost overruns. It's a bloated, self-serving, arbitrary bureaucracy, filled with inspectors inspecting each other. It's so wasteful. NY/NJ needs to take a hard look at this organization after this mess.
Iver Thompson Pasadena, CA 3 hours ago
If I were rushing to catch a train, I do believe the last thing I'd want to see happen was for my jaw to drop open. All this fru-fru everywhere now in so-called architecture is just clumsy and extraneous kitsch, completely lacking in elegance and subtlety. Purely done out ego gratification and self indulgence on the part of the designer. A Roman column is beautiful, simple, elegant . . . and it holds the building up. All these modern soaring accessories just bloats the budget and is as functional to the content as is fancy and expensive wrapping paper on a cheap gift. Our own beloved Walt Disney Music Center here in LA and designed by Frank Gehry, embodies this syndrome perfectly. With people literally starving and homeless on the streets, this display of wasteful public self indulgence tells a lot about the state of our society. Just ask Rome, who made those columns.
Michael Boston, MA 3 hours ago
Overpriced and poorly managed it may have been--and I am sensitive to calls for investment in more practical and useful services--but I also believe that we as a country tend to under-invest in public works projects that are awe-inspiring and beautiful. While the costs should be better managed, the United States needs more of this kind of bold, beautiful, visionary use of public space. How dreary our lives are when all we have is grey, dull, square, utilitarian public buildings that serve their purpose but do not inspire.
George S New York, NY 3 hours ago
A monument to one man's ego, at the public's expense. Absurd to have wasted so much money, and a classic example why people have less and less trust in all levels of government, when cost overruns in the billions have become a yawn and "oh well".
Then factor in reality. Aside from it's nothing nearly busy enough to warrant the size (setting aside the grandiose design and wasted space), some other comments are spot on about those pretty but likely hazardous gleaming white floors. Which raises another point - white?? With the MTA's history of little to no maintenance and cleaning, how long before this goes from soaring dove to soiled dove, with gum stuck to the marble, leaks staining the walls, ceilings and the "oculus" (exemplifying our modern penchant for dreadful construction quality), graffiti, random stickers adhered to the walls, and the attainment of the same "patina" as every other station. What a waste of money and poor public design.
The hub, opening Thursday, gives the city an Instagram-ready attraction and the most expensive train station ever.
nytimes.com|By Michael Kimmelman
Behold! The Raptor has landed! Hail Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub, with its grand opening this month. Starchitecture’s latest bowling trophy is less huge (yuge-uh!) than it looks. Check out the scale of construction vehicles at it’s beak end (or is that cloaca?) Cost $4-plus billion. It is not, by the way, New York City’s main train station. That distinction is shared by the enduringly grand Grand Central Station and the subterranean latrine known as Penn Station. This new “hub” is just an entrance to the Jersey-bound PATH trains and a bunch of converging subway lines that boil down to it being the city’s “18th-busiest subway stop” (NY Times) – which isn’t saying a whole lot. No doubt the project was cooked up in the same spirit of paranoid jingo-narcissism as the grandiose POS known as “Freedom Tower” put up in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to provide a fresh target for the aggrieved peoples of the world. Below is the acclaimed interior, dubbed “the Occulus” — a reference to the skylight on the raptor’s curved spine. The result is a sterile, boring, vacant chamber (soon to grow dingy) for Wall Streeters to throw parties (a.k.a. an “event space.”) Remember: history is a prankster. With the banking / finance system heading south this year, and the political parties blowing up, and the USA heading into a terra incognita of social disorder, imagine how the raging 99-percenters will treat the partying Wall Streeters in their event space. Duck and cover, Goldman Sachsers!
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