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The Times reports on Santiago Calatrava's first words about his commission to design a transit center at the World Trade Center site. Reporter David Dunlap writes, "...Mr. Calatrava made it clear that he, too, would think large — on the scale of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station. Old Pennsylvania Station." Heh. Gothamist likes that emphasis on "Old" Pennsylvania Station. The transit center will be "something above and beyond a PATH terminal, though that function will be at its core. He envisions a civic gathering place that would be open 24 hours a day, pulsing with life and movement, sending people out into the city, greeting travelers from the airport, discharging commuters to nearby ferries and even sheltering visitors from the rain."
Calatrava says, "Those places are gates to the city. New York City has a tradition of great stations. There are cities in the world that don't have that. New York has it." He adds, as everyone has been looking to his work for clues about how he'll tackle this design, "This station will be different than anything else I've done. I don't remember having had to work in such a dense, dense core of a city."
There is very little not to be excited about when thinking about Calatrava designing the new terminal. Look at his work (like the Orient Station in Lisbon, above; Photo - Structurae) on his website.
A Calatrava fansite. And will he use laminated glass? We're sure Dupont hopes so, as they devote a page to his work.
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Someone should inform Calatrava that those people using the station will primarily be from Jersey. Really, what's the point of a grand design.
Jen, please no more "Heh". Please. Instapundit has ruined it.
Heh heh heh! I love the heh! It sums up my life.
You're right, P - we New Jerseyites are more interested in a practical solution than grandiose, pretentious nonsense of the type that tends to emerge from the gargantuan egos of wunderkind architects.
The Port Authority has unfinished tasks in the poor physical state and uncomfortable environmental conditions in some of its existing PATH stations. Rather than incur hundreds of millions of dollars in debt building some hideous modernist piece of crap, I'd prefer if the PA could work out some way of keeping the summer station temperature at Pavonia/Newport and 14th St. below 110 degrees fahrenheit.
I'd also rate better integration with the NYC Subway and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail as key priorities for the PA, more important than building a transportation cathedral in lower Manhattan.