It’s been closed for ten years, but a downtown subway station almost destroyed on Sept.11 is slowly rumbling back to life.
From aboard the 1 train, the Cortlandt Street Station looks like a dusty relic of New York’s darkest day, a painful reminder of the ghost town that Lower Manhattan became after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Looks can be deceiving.
Above, beneath and on either side of the long-shuttered station, which the Post had exclusive access, toils a team of hardhats and engineers working to bring the heavily-damaged 1 train stop back into service.
“It’s going to be a completely modern station, significantly larger and completed integrated with the [World Trade Center] transit hub,” said Damian McShane, the site’s senior project manager.
Looking at what will one day be the station platform — currently accessible only by a rickety wooden ladder — it’s hard to contemplate the devastation immediately following the terror attacks.
The station — which was located directly beneath the Twin Towers — had to be completely excavated to begin construction.
Beams now support its tracks — much like an elevated station — with work going on in every direction around it.
The subway tracks are hidden behind a temporary wooden wall — which is what straphangers see when bypassing the station — to keep the workers safe.
About the only hint that the colossal construction site will one day be a New York City subway station is the frequent roar of the unseen train, the only sound loud enough to pierce the din of jackhammers and heavy machinery.
The work is being done in phases, the first of which is expected to be complete in 2014.
Officials say it’s expected to cost $150 million.
That the station will open at all is nothing short of a miracle.
“This was right in the middle of the destruction,” said McShane.
“The roof collapsed. The Towers fell on the station.”
A year passed before trains could pass through it all, with downtown service being rerouted to Brooklyn.
Once complete, straphangers will be able to enter directly into Tower 3 from the station and there will be entrances leading directly to the 9-11 Memorial and the anticipated performing arts center. It will also connect to a maze of retail shops and restaurants and the future World Trade Center Transit hub.