NEW YORK | World Trade Center Memorial & Transit Hub

[Traynor]

New rib installation this morning:


(screen cap from Earthcam HERE )

[JMGarcia]

PATH/Fail: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Train Station

http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/

[J. Will]

Article about heavy security at the World Trade Centre. The NYPD says it will make the area more welcoming for pedestrians and cyclists. Time will tell.



With Security, Trade Center Faces New Isolation

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...rity-measures/

The wreckage had not been cleared from ground zero when planners and neighbors began imagining how the devastation of Sept. 11 could be redeemed, in some way, by a new World Trade Center, one that would be fully joined to the rest of Lower Manhattan rather than standing apart in chilling isolation.

Barbed wires and fences have been erected on Vesey St. between Church St. and West Broadway near One World Trade Center.

It was a chance, they believed, to correct a painful planning error of the 1960s, when a lively, jumbled gridiron of riverfront streets, anchored by a clamorous appliance district called Radio Row, was bulldozed into oblivion to create a barren, windswept plaza whose only evident purpose was to serve as a pedestal for the twin towers.

With the blank slate offered by a catastrophic attack, planners, soon joined by the mayor himself, saw a chance to re-establish a great crossroads: Fulton and Greenwich Streets, tying the second World Trade Center into New York — north, south, east and west.

The police plan calls for nine guard booths, each about 6 by 12 feet in area and 11 feet tall. Eight street intersections would be restricted by a double barricade system known as a sally port, from 30 to 160 feet long. The trade center site would also be bounded by bollards, the barrier posts that have cropped up around many important structures since 2001.

But the Police Department argued that the measures allow for plenty of public access. “The campus security plan will not isolate the World Trade Center from the Lower Manhattan community,” said Richard C. Daddario, the deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism. In fact, he said, it would make the site a more desirable for pedestrians and bicyclists, who will be able to pass freely. That, in turn, might knit it more seamlessly into the fabric of downtown.

[genop]

Article from the post
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...oC0qpkU5zKXPyJ

Path says ‘eye’ do
WTC $3.7B terminal will host catered affairs
By LOIS WEISS


Get a look at what could be the most expensive catering hall in the world.

The $3.74 billion World Trade Center PATH terminal — a Santiago Calatrava-designed centerpiece known as the Oculus — will be rented out for such events as charity fundraisers, art shows and, yes, maybe even weddings, The Post has learned.

The eye-shaped, multistory space — so large it can fit two-and-a-half Grand Central Terminals inside — has been beset with runaway costs since it was first dreamed up about nine years ago.

The Port Authority envisioned a grand transportation hub akin to Penn Station or Grand Central — but commuters will have to deal with parts of it being closed at times for private events.

To ensure the events are as dramatic as the design, special infrastructure, including screens, lighting and sound systems, will be installed.

“It will be more than transformational,” said Tara Stacom, a vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, which is the leasing agent for the connected One World Trade Center.

The Westfield Group will lease and operate the retail and venue space.

While still in the works, the expectation is that Westfield will create a year-round calendar of events.

The added private events could help increase revenue received by the Port Authority — which will go to offset the massive cost of the new hub.

The PATH station is being developed and paid for by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the WTC grounds.