The new $750 million
Fulton Transit Center will feature a 110-foot-high
glass-and-steel dome that will allow sunlight to
filter into what is now a dingy, maze-like subway
complex, according to plans unveiled yesterday.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority hub,
at Broadway and Fulton St., also would preserve
the 115-year-old Corbin Building and use its
arches as another entrance point.
And it would untangle the confusing and crowded
warren of corridors now leading to nine subway
lines, officials said.
"It's just beautiful and it works
well," MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said of the
plans. "We're very proud of it and I think
all New Yorkers will be proud. It will be a great
addition downtown."
The complex - a combination of several separate
stations built between 1905 and 1932 - is the
busiest in lower Manhattan. The planned changes
will benefit 300,000 daily commuters, officials
said.
Bordered by Broadway, Fulton, John and Nassau
Sts., a new above-ground entrance hall will take
the form of a 50-foot-high glass box topped by the
dome, designed to be a beacon for travelers.
Rick Bell, executive director of the New York
chapter of the American Institute of Architects,
said the light-infused station will bring back a
"sense of romance" to travel, even to
"something as mundane as going to work
everyday. It's a very poetic building."
He described commuters walking through the
station in early-morning sunlight and seeing the
stars above them on their way home at night.
There would be two levels of retail inside, one
on a balcony above street level. Commuters would
take escalators down to the wide-open concourse
and then have access, some by well-marked routes
via escalators and stairways, to nine lines:
2,3,4,5,A,C,J,M and Z.
A 400-foot underground passageway would stretch
west under Dey St. to the PATH trains at the World
Trade Center hub, as well as W,R,E,1 and 9 subway
lines.
The plans were unveiled at the Center for
Architecture on LaGuardia Place and will be
available for public viewing through mid-July.
Construction is slated to begin at the end of
the year with the project to be completed toward
the end of 2007. Train service will continue
during the work, though several buildings will
have to be acquired and demolished for the
project.
