March 2016 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold! The Raptor has landed! Hail Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub, with its grand opening this month. Starchitecture’s latest bowling trophy is less huge (yuge-uh!) than it looks. Check out the scale of construction vehicles at it’s beak end (or is that cloaca?) Cost $4-plus billion. It is not, by the way, New York City’s main train station. That distinction is shared by the enduringly grand Grand Central Station and the subterranean latrine known as Penn Station. This new “hub” is just an entrance to the Jersey-bound PATH trains and a bunch of converging subway lines that boil down to it being the city’s “18th-busiest subway stop” (NY Times) – which isn’t saying a whole lot. No doubt the project was cooked up in the same spirit of paranoid jingo-narcissism as the grandiose POS known as “Freedom Tower” put up in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to provide a fresh target for the aggrieved peoples of the world. Below is the acclaimed interior, dubbed “the Occulus” — a reference to the skylight on the raptor’s curved spine. The result is a sterile, boring, vacant chamber (soon to grow dingy) for Wall Streeters to throw parties (a.k.a. an “event space.”) Remember: history is a prankster. With the banking / finance system heading south this year, and the political parties blowing up, and the USA heading into a terra incognita of social disorder, imagine how the raging 99-percenters will treat the partying Wall Streeters in their event space. Duck and cover, Goldman Sachsers!