EX PLACE RISES AGAIN: The redevelopment of Ground Zero and of the World Trade Center's destroyed transit hub may be years (if not decades) away, but a crucial piece of the pre-9/11 tranportation landscape was restored Sunday when the Exchange Place PATH station in Jersey City re-opened.
The PATH, for those unfamiliar, is a small underground transit system that serves the lower part of Manhattan and Northern New Jersey. Prior to 9/11, it functoned sort of as an X, with the four corners being Hoboken and Newark on the Jersey Side and 33rd Street (near Macy's) and the World Trade Center on the Manhattan end. After 9/11 the WTC end of course was scrapped, and that included Exchange Place, which served Jersey City's downtown business district.
When I first moved to Hoboken from Manhattan two years ago, one of the first things I did was teach myself the PATH system- so one day I got off at Exchange Place to look around. I remember being in awe of the view of the World Trade Center from the station's plaza.
Almost two years after September 11, every little bit of healing still helps. I'll have take another trip down there sometime this week.