NYC Memorial – World Trade Center Station | United States

Santiago Calatrava is one of the architects I admire most. I have photographed a few of his office buildings before, and something about the way he takes steel and makes it almost a living organism keeps drawing me back to his work. On my trip to New York, the World Trade Center Station was a must. It is the transportation hub he designed for the rebuilt World Trade Center site, and the interior is a stunning play with light.

A marvel of light at the World Trade Center Station

The most striking thing about the World Trade Center Station as I walked in was not its enormous scale, it was the way the light behaves inside it. It is a measure of Calatrava’s brilliance that the white rib-like structures overhead that form the Oculus are not simply utilitarian; they alter the sunlight coming in through the skylights. They bend it, play with it, somehow make it softer. The result is a building that does not feel like a train station, but something more rarified. There is a cathedral-like quality to it, something that compels the eyes upward. Grand Central Terminal holds New York’s other great ceiling, but it works with weight and ornament. The Oculus works with nothing but light.

Keeping the peace inside the Oculus

This was a tricky photo to get. I took it in the middle of the day, when the World Trade Center Station was full of commuters moving in every direction. I wanted the stillness and scale of the architecture to come through without the distraction of masses of people. Getting to that feeling of serene emptiness took extensive work: blending several frames to clear the space while keeping the light exactly as it was. It is one of the shots where the post-processing carries as much of the result as the moment of capture did. The same problem shows up all over the city, and I solved it a different way at the New York Stock Exchange, where the crowds became part of the picture instead.

Two views of the World Trade Center Station

I ended up with both a vertical and a horizontal version of the shot, and I still cannot decide which one I like better. The vertical pulls the eye upward toward the skylight, which is exactly what it feels like to stand in the hall. The horizontal opens up the whole width of the Oculus. Both are accurate representations of the World Trade Center Station, in different ways. I leave it to you to decide. If you have a clear favorite, let me know, or if you are as conflicted as I am, I understand.

Standing in a memorial that is also a train station

The World Trade Center Station is one of the most compelling structures I have photographed. As a transit hub it teems with commuters and travelers, all of them passing through the PATH platforms below on their way to somewhere else. At the same time there is a reverential quality to it, the same wordless quality I found in the Ellis Island Registry Room, that reminds you where you are standing, even as the city goes about its day.