Mike D. @ ITP

The following is my ramshackle collection of research for the possible (real or imagined) locations for installing my Metaforms class project, along with Rory Nugent and Eugene Ahn. I’m going to be updating this as I go along, so this’ll get much prettier, and I’ll add proper attribution for everyone’s photos when I get a moment.

Train stations:

When we three sat down to talk (also initally with Adam Simon, who’s no longer in the class), we all seemed to be into train stations. It’s kinda hard not to be, living in this city, but we three seemed to have a special appreciation for those leading to and from Jersey City, where we all live. The ride to and fro on the PATH is a long, strange journey every day (both less long and less strange than it was a few years ago), and the stations have a completely different arrangement and feel than the standard MTA stations.

In particular, my personal favorite is the opening of the Christopher Street PATH station. It’s old, beautifully decorated, and opens into an area full of bars, dance clubs, sex shops and little bodegas.

Christopher St. PATH Entrance:

The Christopher Street PATH station, opened on February 25, 1908, is located on Christopher Street (just west of Hudson Street). The station entrance is in its own free-standing building, with a restored marquis displaying the original “Hudson Tubes” name adorning the entranceway.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks which resulted in the destruction of the vital World Trade Center PATH station, the Christopher Street station experienced serious overcrowding; in fact, the station became so busy that the Port Authority had to make it an exit-only station during the morning rush hour. The Port Authority planned to build a second entrance at Christopher and Bedford Street (a block and a half east of the current entrance), to ease overcrowding at the station, but local opposition effectively killed the project. Residents were concerned that the project would endanger the surrounding neighborhood’s fragile historic buildings (through the vibrations that a major construction project would cause) and disrupt business and traffic in the Village.[1] The Port Authority continues to look into the possibility of building a second entrance to service the 9th Street station, which is also opposed by local residents. The effects of September 11 did not end quickly. In 2002, Christopher Street station was used by an average of 7,400 people per day, about 2.701 million per annum. This was 51% higher than the 1.314 million passengers that utilised Christopher Street in 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Street_(PATH_station)

It’s also the only PATH station that faces “backwards” — the entry is at the opposing direction that the train heads in, likely because of the station’s age.

On a very different scale, I’m also kinda obsessed with the little brass figures that live at the 14th St. / 8th Ave. station in NYC.

From an NPR story:

“At New York’s 14th Street subway station, a bronze alligator emerges from a manhole to swallow up a hapless passerby. It’s one of many such whimsical figures created for the station by artist Tom Otterness.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4111768

One question I keep running into is whether this is the perfect example of reinterpreting space in a subway, and therefore we shouldn’t add to it, or if instead it’s the perfect playground for new ideas. I think we’ll refine that a bit as we go through the course.

JC Powerhouse

The 1906 Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse, once the embellished electrical engine of what is now the PATH rapid transit system, stands as a rare reminder of America’s glorious Gilded and Industrial Ages. Its 1908 inauguration of the Powerhouse was attened by President Theodore Roosevelt, sitting in the White House, who threw the opening switch. The Powerhouse not only provided electricity to the “Hudson Tubes” (now known as PATH) but also to what was the world’s largest office complex, the Hudson Terminals.

Directly across the Hudson River, the Powerhouse is one block from the waterfront where ferries and water taxis arrive from lower and midtown Manhattan and a few blocks from three different PATH stations. The site is across the street from “WALDO,” Jersey City’s art district. This is an eight-block area of historical warehouses in which artists, and only artists, are allowed to live.

The structure is steel framed and exterior brick walls are 28″ thick. There are twelve lines of columns running north to south and fourteen lines running east to west. The largest windows are 1,300 square feet each (the largest of their kind on the East Coast) and on the east side is a sliding access door large enough to admit a railroad car. An observation roof, 200 x 200 feet, offers sweeping, unobstructed views of Manhattan. The New York Times has hailed it as an “ancient, partly ruined cathedral…a masterpiece of brickwork.”

National Historic Register #01001256

Tribeca Grand Lobby

Other considerations.

The ceiling at McSorleys (on 7th, between 3rd and 2nd) is something that always comes to mind when discussing site-specific ideas. McSorleys has its share of stories and such, but the ceiling has probably never been cleaned. It’s both beautiful and horribly disgusting.