17 YEARS LATER, THE CORTLANDT SUBWAY STATION REOPENS AT LAST
So is this a case of better late than never? I’m really not sure. But it brings back a lot of frustration I’d managed to forget. Last week, New York City’s forgotten subway station was finally reopened. The Cortlandt subway station has been closed since that fateful day the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001. No one has been able to use this stop in the last 17 years. So why did it take so damn long to get this done? Certainly, a lack of shame is part of the answer. The richest country in the world took 17 long years just to fix a subway station. So what was it? Management? Poor organization? Politics? Stupidity? Let’s just say yes to all of those. But Cortlandt reopens at last.
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WTC CORTLANDT SUBWAY STATION REOPENS TO PUBLIC AT LAST
Now with the name WTC Cortlandt, the station opened to the public again on September 8, just over a week ago. I’d like to say that I knew about this construction travesty, but I’ve avoided going down there well, for the last 17 years. I’m already furious at the new WTC buildings. Just how do you replace the Twin Towers with something smaller? You don’t. You respond to the 9/11 attack with something even grander. But did we do that? No. We did something much smaller that made a select few in New York, New Jersey and Albany a bit richer. And now I remember it all because of this last (hopefully?) insult to injury with the WTC Cortlandt reopening.
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STATION FEATURES CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY, MOSAICS HONORING THE LOST
So construction faced delays because of all the construction for the surrounding buildings. That’s the story, anyway. The renovation cost $181 million, giving us a completely revamped subway stop, 17 years later. The station sports a new ventilation system which will make straphangers happy in the Summer. It is also a flagship stop for handicap accessibility. So what else? You’ll also find a mosaic of the Declaration of Independence as well as the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, meant to honor all the victims from the 9/11 attack. It’s just too bad we honor human rights less now in our foreign policy than ever before. But I suppose the City wasn’t even allowed to start rebuilding the station until 2015. That’s because of the port authorities for both New York and New Jersey.
Better late than never?
