New York's biggest subway hub - the US$1.4b Fulton Centre - opens
New World Trade Centre now linked to nine lines and the rest of the city
New York's biggest subway hub has opened in lower Manhattan - a vital link between the new World Trade Centre and the rest of the city.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Sunday inaugurated the US$1.4 billion Fulton Centre, a transit complex where nine subway lines converge.
"Welcome to the station of the 21st century," said engineer Michael Horodniceanu, who led the project as president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Capital Construction.
He spoke to top transit and political officials at the opening of the subway hub that merges century-old stations with the latest digital technology and design. The facility was due to open to the public at 5am yesterday.
Hundreds of thousands will enter what officials called Lower Manhattan's "next great public space". Its soaring street-level atrium is encased in a glass-and-steel shell, with luminous interior panels leading to a skylight designers call the "oculus" - Latin for eye. Livening up the climate-controlled, energy-saving spaces are various avant-garde artworks.
Construction of this vital subway hub was fraught with challenges. The five underground subway stations partly damaged in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were closed for months. Then, in 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused floodwaters to roar into the tunnels, crippling service.