Transportation
A Long Chat With Santiago Calatrava on What Train Stations Mean to Cities
“I love Grand Central, but I think our station is even more urban,” says the architect behind New York’s new $4 billion transit hub.
Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub opened Thursday in Lower Manhattan. It’s basically a light rail station that connects riders to ferries, subway lines, and office towers through a shopping center (which will open later this year), anchored by a public area with a stunning glass and steel roof called the “Oculus.” All for the cost of $4 billion.
The price is still the most notable fact about the hub—something that clearly bothers the architect, who has been giving interviews and tours of his first U.S. transportation project in recent weeks in hopes of assuring everyone that what he has made for New York is indeed worth it.