[jahvon09]

NYC / Fulton Center / Status; U/C / Compl; 2015?

Here's the link to a time-lapse vid of the completion of the dome's net that was installed inside the station's kiosk.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhnPZQrq6LI

 

[jahvon09]

Checking In on the $1.4B Fulton Center Before June's Opening

by Hana R. Alberts

(see article for more pics)



Tribeca Citizen has an update on the $1.4 billion mall-slash-transit hub that is the long-awaited Fulton Center. This week Australian mall developer and Fulton Center's master-of-retail-leasing Westfield Group unveiled a video showing new renderings of the interior of the five-level complex as well as a lot of construction shots. Many of the visuals showcase the almost-complete "sky reflector net," the unsexily-named, much-vaunted oculus that is meant to add architectural allure to the project and also let light into the shopping center all the way down to the subway platforms below.

The imagery, all screenshot from the video, is designed to lure tenants, accompanied as it is by brokerbabble narration about downtown Manhattan's coming of age and about Fulton Center being a place for the 300,000 people per day who pass through to shop and eat as well as switch trains. The upper floors might even house tech incubators. (From the renders, it seems that everyone will also be forced to stare at a lot of bright yellow LED screens full of advertising.) While the MTA has set an opening date of June 26, TC says stores and eateries won't start to move in until late fall or the first quarter of 2015.


What to Expect from the Fulton Center Mall [Tribeca Citizen]
Fulton Center subway complex opening June 26, shops to come in the fall [Downtown Express]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/0...es_opening.php

 

[jahvon09]

Fulton Center Station Reopens!

Fulton Center Station reopens today after being closed since the 0-11-01 attacks for 13 years.



http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/n...ubway-complex-reopens-in-lower-manhattan.html

 

[jahvon09]

New York Times
November 9, 2014

Out of Dust and Debris, a New Jewel Rises

Fulton Center, a Subway Complex, Reopens in Lower Manhattan

By VIVIAN YEE

Slide Show



The glass-and-steel prism called Fulton Center began life as a public-transit labyrinth, a spaghetti-bowl tangle of dimly-lit corridors, narrow switchbacks and baffling signage cobbled together out of five subway stations built in the early 1900s.

A century later, and more than a decade after part of the Lower Manhattan subway complex was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the nine subway lines that converge on Fulton Street and Broadway have been knit together anew. New Yorkers, accustomed to suffering through transit hubs like Penn Station and Times Square, will find on Monday a kind of Crystal Palace, crowned by a dome that funnels daylight two stories below ground.

Even with ballooning budgets and repeated delays, Fulton Center was the kind of megaproject designed to inspire hyperbole, and it did: “Forget the Grand Central clock,†said Gale Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, at Fulton Center’s ribbon-cutting on Sunday afternoon. “They’re going to come here.â€

She and the other politicians and transit officials who spoke at the opening reminded the crowd of the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when dust and debris entombed the surrounding streets. As daylight streamed through the oculus’s “Sky-Reflector Net,†the speakers all came to the same point, most succinctly summarized by Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York.

“This station,†he said, “is a metaphor for a revitalized downtown.â€

Around Fulton Street, the scaffolding and cranes that chopped up Lower Manhattan have come down. The National September 11 Memorial Museum opened in May. One World Trade Center welcomed its first tenants last week. More than 300,000 passengers a day are expected to pass through Fulton Center.

But like the others, Fulton Center was never intended simply to restore what was: with retailers like Tom Ford claiming space in the World Trade Center transit hub and a food court drawing buzz in nearby Brookfield Place, officials envision the new building as a newly dazzling jewel of Lower Manhattan, downtown’s answer to Grand Central Terminal.

On Sunday, a classical guitarist serenaded guests. Burberry ads flashed across large screens. About the only humble touch was the greeting Monica Williams, a supervisor at the complex, had written on the information booth’s whiteboard for Monday: “Have a nice day.â€

“It is a big job,†she said, smiling. “A big challenge.â€

But the bigger challenge was building it.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s architects and construction workers had to resolve century-old rivalries among the nine subway lines around Fulton Street, the 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J, Z and R. Their stations originally belonged to three private subway companies whose reluctance to allow transfers to competitors’ lines created the old hodgepodge.

“It was a nightmare, and you never knew what direction you were headed,†recalled Michael Horodniceanu, the transit authority’s president of capital construction. Now, he said, “We expect it to become the new paradigm for stations.â€

The builders smoothed out connections, cutting out the bobbing-and-weaving that had made navigation at Fulton Center an ordeal. Now, among other changes, the A and C lines run a few flights of stairs down from the 4 and the 5. Passengers can reach the entirety of the 4 and 5 train platforms. And the whole complex is accessible to the disabled.

They threaded a 350-foot-long pedestrian passageway under Dey Street to link Fulton Center with the R and, sometime next year, the World Trade Center PATH train complex, which was designed as a companion hub. Once that complex opens and the Cortlandt Street station is rebuilt, passengers can also reach the E and 1 lines.

At the end of the new passageway, they brought back something old: ceramic tile art by Margie Hughto that was originally installed at the Cortlandt Street R station in 1997.

The central hub is ringed with shops and kiosks. Up a winding staircase, two floors overlooking the central rotunda may become restaurants or more retail space.

Next door, they preserved and built a new foundation for the Corbin Building, which will contain more than 36,000 square feet of office space.

The scale of the project was such that the transit authority felt the need to distribute a fact sheet littered with impressive figures, chief among them the 52 screens that will carry maps and service updates, digital art and advertisements. (One is for a Burberry watch that displays the correct time when it appears on-screen.)

What went unmentioned in the sheet were the project’s cost overruns, delays and a corresponding downgrade in ambitions, setbacks that have plagued other transit authority projects in recent years. The dome was scaled back, a planned direct connection between the R and the E lines scuttled. What was supposed to open in 2007 at a cost of $750 million took seven more years and totaled $1.4 billion.

So it was perhaps understandable that a handful of impatient passengers tried to cut into the station to reach the 4 train on Sunday, only to find themselves blocked by a guard.

Mr. Horodniceanu beamed. “Tell the to come back at 5 a.m.,†he called.

© 2014 The New York Times Company

 

[jahvon09]

Gothamist
November 9, 2014

Photos: Your First Look At The Gleaming New Fulton Center Subway Hub

Photo Gallery (Photos by Tod Seelie)



Tomorrow at 5 a.m., the sparkling and expansive new Fulton Center subway hub will finally open to the public. The MTA celebrated the opening of the $1.4 billion transit complex today with officials and media mingling in the glass and steel shell, now the biggest transit hub in NYC. "The center is an important symbol for New York in so many ways," said MTA chief executive Thomas Prendergast.

The Fulton Center, which has been in the works since 2002 and nearly in danger of not happening, will accommodate up to 300,000 straphangers every day, finally connecting the 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J, Z and R lines in a more seamless way than the old, patched-together transfers that were repeatedly referred to as "dark" and "confusing." Eventually, the 1 and E trains as well as the PATH, through the new World Trade Center hub, will connect there as well. Sen. Charles Schumer referred to 9/11 at the ceremony, calling the station "a metaphor for a revitalized downtown with 40,000 more residents than it had before," as Rep. Jerry Nadler said the U.S must invest in its infrastructure—much of the funds for the project were from the feds—to succeed.

More interestingly, the center features a light-filled atrium, thanks to the soaring oculus that is 110 feet high and 53 feet in diameter. Even two stories underground, natural light could be seen during the press tour, and Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin referred to one subterranean spot where you can look up at the oculus as "The Circle of Light." MTA Capital Construction President Dr. Michael Horodniceanu has pointed out that when people can see where they need to go, they can move faster, and the Fulton Center is spacious and clear, with the three large staircase-and-escalator combinations and exits on the ground floor very obvious. More importantly, the whole facility is ADA-compliant, so commuters with disabilities will be able to travel seamlessly.

MTA Capital Construction Senior Vice President and Engineer Uday Durg and MTA Capital Construction Chief Architect Eve Michel detailed the challenges of building transfers under the Corbin building, an 1899 building that is one of NYC's earliest skyscrapers. The MTA needed to improve upon the Corbin building's foundation, and workers used pick axes, buckets and shovels to dig the dirt! Durg said alarms were set up so if the building moved, their Blackberries would buss; it's very concerning, he said, "when a building moves seven inches to the left or seven inches to the right."

You can still see the original brick upside-down arches from the Corbin building when you take the escalators to and from the 350-foot-long pedestrian tunnel under Dey Street, which connects to the R (and eventually the E and the PATH). The Fulton Center also has 60,000 square feet of planned retail and office space; Michel said that the first tenants will probably move in early next year, and the space will be fully occupied in 12-18 months.

In providing a better commuter experience, the MTA broke through walls to make as much of platforms accessible for transfers as possible. Durg said that the biggest transfer was between the 4/5 and the A/C, and prior to the Fulton Center, most people would pack the first few train cars for the transfer—and when that happens, other commuters will kindly hold the door open for others, but then that adds to delays. Now, there isn't that problem.

Take a look through photos of the hub above, before it is overrun with human beings and given a true NYC makeover (re: urine, graffiti and rat turds).

Reporting from Jen Chung

© 2003-2014 Gothamist LLC. All rights reserved.

 

[jahvon09]

A sneak peek inside the MTA's palatial $1.4B Fulton Center

The hub allows access to nine lines and has natural light, spiral staircases, granite and more.

by Pete Donohue


The $1.4 billion Fulton Center subway station is still under construction, but is mostly completed.
Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News

Standing at Fulton St. and Broadway one recent morning, a gentleman tilted his head back and looked up at the bright blue sky above him in lower Manhattan.
“So what?†you might ask.

Well, he was standing in a subway station one floor below street level.

And it was air-conditioned.

This isn’t the dungeon-like experience that usually follows a MetroCard swipe.

The Fulton Center — the MTA’s $1.4 billion transit hall that initially will provide a new means of access to nine subway lines — is not yet open.


The Fulton Center will provide a gateway to Lower Manhattan and better connections for riders.
Patrick Cashin//MTA

But if you managed a sneak peek behind the temporary construction walls, you’d see that the project is 99% completed.

Workers are knocking off “punch list†items, testing the public address systems, putting face plates over electrical outlets, installing handrails on spiral — yes, spiral — staircases.

In some areas of the hub, workers are cleaning up, sweeping sawdust off granite floors and picking up the last of their tools.

Enter from the street and walk down a flight of stairs, or take an escalator, and you’ll be on the transit hall’s upper mezzanine.

If you are like our gentleman trespasser, you might be struck by the fact that the hall is illuminated by natural light entering through a 90-foot-wide oculus. That’s a fancy word for skylight.


Sweeping architecture is the hallmark of the Fulton Center.
Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News

The opening doesn’t offer a sweeping view of the heavens. But its a far cry better than the cavernous subway stations with jailhouse ambiance, like Bowery in Manhattan, Norwood in the Bronx and Vernon/Jackson in Queens. The Fulton Center isn’t an upgrade. For most subway riders, this is another planet.

A web of steel cables descends from the circular skylight like a net hanging down from a basketball hoop. This web, however, is adorned with nearly 1,000 diamond-shaped pieces of aluminum, patched together like a puzzle. The giant piece of art reflects the sky downward and through the building.

Natural light also passes to the Fulton Center’s lowest level, through a smaller but sizeable opening in the mezzanine. This is called the “mixing bowl,†where hundreds of thousands of subway riders and tourists will cross paths, similar to the scene on Grand Central Terminal’s marbled floors.

And all of them — at least once — will stop and look upward to the sky.

 

[towerpower123]

Fully completed and opened about 6 months ago