Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T!

The Oculus officially opened in March 2016 as the World Trade Center Transportation Hub. It was built to replace the PATH station destroyed in the September 11 attacks.

Originally, the site was home to Hudson Terminal, which opened in 1909 and was operated by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad. After the company went bankrupt, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over operations. When the World Trade Center was constructed in the 1970s, Hudson Terminal was demolished and replaced by the PATH station.

I used to pass through the PATH station when I worked in Lower Manhattan. I happened to be off on the day of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, when a car bomb exploded in the parking garage and damaged the station. It was back up and running within a week. In 2001, however, the collapse of the North Tower during the September 11 attacks destroyed the station completely.

Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus cost a staggering $4 billion to build and was designed to resemble a bird taking flight. Safety-related modifications altered the original vision, and some say it now looks more like a dinosaur. I prefer to think of it as a phoenix, rising from the ashes.

I visited the station with a photography group just before it became fully operational. We had the place to ourselves, and it was so clean we could lie on the floor to photograph the ceiling. Today, it looks very different, with kiosks and art displays filling the center.

Location: Church St, New York, NY
Designation: Transportation Hub
Date designated/established: November 13, 1966
Date of my visit: August 24, 2018