Chambers Street – World Trade Center / Park Place (New York City Subway)

Chambers Street – World Trade Center / Park Place is a station complex on the IND Eighth Avenue Line and IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Lines of the New York City Subway. Located on Church Street between Chambers and Vesey Streets in Lower Manhattan, it is served by the:

• 2, A, and E trains at all times
• 3 and C trains at all times except late nights

IND Eighth Avenue Line platforms

Chambers Street – World Trade Center on the IND Eighth Avenue Line is an express station with four tracks and two island platforms, but in an unusual layout, the station has separate island platforms for express and local trains. The local platform forms the terminus of the local service and is offset to the south of the express platform, at the northern edge of the World Trade Center site. Southbound local trains reach the platform by ramping underneath the express tracks south of Canal Street station. There is a passenger connection between the two platforms at mezzanine level. This passageway also allows a free transfer to 2 3 trains at the Park Place station on the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line.

Both island platforms can accommodate 600-foot (180 m) trains. The northern end of the local platform has a signal tower and a diamond crossover switch that are roughly at the middle of the express platform. The local tracks end at bumper blocks at the south end of the platform. Just north of the station is a third track between the uptown and downtown express tracks, with connecting switches at both ends, which was used to turn trains when Chambers Street was used as a terminal, before the Broadway – Nassau Street (now Fulton Street) station opened on February 11, 1933.

Wall tiles reading "H AND M" remained on the walls of the former Hudson Terminal/current World Trade Center station as late as December 1974,^[3] a year after the World Trade Center was completed. The tiles were initially painted over, and have since been removed during the station's renovation; as of 2007, the station walls are currently blank.

At the extreme southern end of the complex is the wheelchair accessible exit via the PATH station, along with a few High Entrance-Exit Turnstiles (HEETs). Only the local platform is ADA-accessible. The doors and ramp, and structure from the World Trade Center leading into the station survived the September 11, 2001 attacks. The station itself was not damaged, but was covered by dust.

Presentation on maps

The station has been portrayed in a variety of ways on subway maps since 1932. Originally, it was shown as a single station called Chambers Street – Hudson Terminal. Starting in about 1948, two stations were shown, Chambers Street – Hudson Terminal for the express trains continuing to Brooklyn, and Hudson Terminal for the local trains terminating at the station. A 1959 map showed two stations enclosed in a box, but a single label. The 1964 and 1966 maps were similar.

On the 1972 map, it once again appeared to be a single station, with the label showing Chambers Street, Hudson Terminal, World Trade Center, and PATH, although the Hudson Terminal office building complex had already been demolished by this time.

On the current map published by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it is shown as two separate stations with a free transfer — Chambers Street (served by A and C trains) and World Trade Center (served by E trains).

Oculus

There are over 300 mosaics dispersed throughout the station, which are part of the 1998 installation Oculus created by Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel. These eyes were modeled on photographs of the eyes of hundreds of New Yorkers.

According to Jones and Ginzel,

Oculus is a constellation of stone and glass mosaics in the underground labyrinth of interconnected subway stations of lower Manhattan. Over three hundred mosaic eyes, drawn from a photographic study of more than twelve hundred young New Yorkers, are set into the white tile walls of the World Trade Center/Park Place/Chamber Street Stations. The work’s centerpiece is a large exquisitely detailed, elliptical glass and stone mosaic floor (38 ft 8 in x 20’8”) at the heart of the Park Place Station. The continents of the earth, interwoven with the City of New York amidst an ultramarine pool, surround a large eye in the middle of the mosaic. The mosaic is at once a vision of the world, a reflecting pool of water and a representation New York City in its proper geographical orientation.

The work’s detailed renderings of the eye – the most telling, fragile and vulnerable human feature – offer a profound sense of intimacy within a public place. Together, the images create a sense of unity and flow: animating, orienting and humanizing the station. Oculus invites a dialogue between the site and those who move through it.

The former World Trade Center Station is situated at the northeast corner of the site. The station was flooded and closed to the public following the September 11, 2001 attack. The site was damaged but not destroyed, and it reopened eight months later with the work mostly intact. Oculus was recognized as “an unexpected monument” by the Wall Street Journal on September 11, 2003.

Oculus was realized in collaboration with the Roman mosaicist, Rinaldo Piras, Sectile.^[4]

—Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel

January 23, 2005 fire

Around 2:00 p.m. on January 23, 2005, a fire destroyed the interlocking plant at Chambers Street. This caused restriction of A service and complete suspension of C service. Specifically, about one-third of the normal number of A trains ran. Some newspaper articles have blamed the fire on a homeless person trying to keep warm, but that has not been confirmed.

The C in Brooklyn (east of Jay Street) was replaced by an extension of V service on weekdays. The upper level platforms of the Eighth Avenue Line at 50th Street are only served by the C during weekdays, and were thus closed; the only uptown service to 50th Street was via the Queens Boulevard Line's connection (E service) into the lower level of the station.

Additionally, the A, which had formerly used the express tracks on the Eighth Avenue Line south of 168th Street (the C's northern terminus), switched to local at 145th Street, serving the two local stations that were only served by the C (155th Street and 163rd Street – Amsterdam Avenue).

The A also used the local tracks in Brooklyn, serving all stations. Direct rush-hour A trips to Rockaway Park – Beach 116th Street were suspended in favor of the always-running Rockaway Park Shuttle.

Before the fire, on weekday nights from 9 p.m. to midnight, the C was the only service on the local tracks north of 59th Street; the D was switched to local to cover this. The A was switched to local service on weekends to pick up the slack. During rush hour, extra B trains were added, starting on or before January 28.

Until the morning of January 28, the MTA moved the A to the parallel Sixth Avenue Line, Rutgers Street Tunnel and Culver Line (the route used by regular F service) from West Fourth Street to Jay Street between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., in order to perform critical repairs.

The last suspended service, rush-hour trips to Beach 116th Street, was restored on February 14, 2005; until then those trips required a transfer to the Rockaway Park Shuttle.

Initial estimates gave a time of three to five years to restore full service, due to the rarity of the destroyed equipment.^[5] That was later cut back to six to nine months to bring back normal operations. However, C service and 70% of A service was restored at 5 a.m. on February 2, 2005, only ten days after the fire. On April 21, full service was restored.

IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line platform

Park Place is a station on the Brooklyn branch of the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line. It is located on Park Place between Broadway and Church Street.

This is a two-track station with an island platform. There are underground passageways connecting to the Chambers Street and World Trade Center stations on the IND Eighth Avenue Line, as well as to PATH's World Trade Center station.

Image Gallery

Nearby points of interest

• World Trade Center site
• Trinity Church
• Church Street Post Office
• Battery Park City
• World Financial Center
• Winter Garden Atrium
• Century 21
• Millenium Hilton Hotel

References

External links

• nycsubway.org — IRT West Side Line: Park Place
• nycsubway.org — IND 8th Avenue: Chambers Street/World Trade Center
• nycsubway.org — New York City Subway Historical Maps:
• nycsubway.org — Oculus Artwork by Jones and Ginzel (1998)
• Station Reporter — World Trade Center Complex
• The Subway Nut — Chambers Street – Park Place – World Trade Center (A, C, E, 2, 3)
• A/C/V service updates after the fire (Internet Archive)
• MTA's Arts For Transit — Chambers Street/Park Place
• Chambers Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Warren Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Murray Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Park Place and Church Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Barclay Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Vesey Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Park Place and Broadway entrance from Google Maps Street View