Biggest NY subway hub opens; expects 300,000 daily

NEW YORK "We did it!"

The words of the lead engineer on the new Fulton Center punctuated more than a decade of work Sunday to create the primary transit link between the rebuilt World Trade Center and the rest of the city.

Nine existing subway lines converge in the $1.4 billion, 180,000-square-foot complex that will serve up to 300,000 riders a day and that includes retail and office space.

"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 city's biggest subway hub that merges century-old stations with the latest digital technology and design.

The facility will open to the public Monday at 5 a.m. Eastern time.

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 on Sept. 11, 2001, were closed for months. Then, in 2012, flood waters roared into the tunnels, crippling service.

Now, just feet from the revitalized trade center, the complex is part of a "new hot area," said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY.

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Biggest NY subway hub opens; expects 300,000 daily