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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Exchange Place Station (PATH)
The Exchange Place station is a station on the Port Authority Trans–Hudson (PATH) rail system in the Paulus Hook neighborhood of Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. The station is on the Newark–World Trade Center line between Newark Penn Station and World Trade Center all week and the Hoboken–World Trade Center line during the day on weekdays to service Hoboken Terminal. Exchange Place provides access to the Jersey City waterfront and a station on the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail, where connections are available to Bayonne and North Bergen.

Exchange Place station opened on July 19, 1909, as part of the original opening of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad between the former Pennsylvania Railroad terminal at Exchange Place and Hudson Terminal. The station headhouse was rebuilt in 1989. Exchange Place station flooded after the September 11 attacks and was closed until June 29, 2003, when it became a temporary terminal. Service returned to World Trade Center on November 23, 2003.

History

Original station

The original Exchange Place station opened on July 19, 1909 at the western end of the Downtown Hudson Tubes adjacent to the Pennsylvania Railroad station and ferry terminal. The above-ground entrance and platforms were refurbished in the late 1960s and early 1970s after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over operations of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad.

A derailment on April 26, 1942 at this station resulted in five deaths and over 200 injuries. In that incident, the train operator Louis Vierbucken was charged with manslaughter, as he was under the influence of liquor. Court records recount that he "began to go faster and faster, disregarding warning signals and curves" and then the train derailed at the station.

Present day

The platforms were lengthened in 1987 to allow the station to accommodate eight-car trains. The present-day station entrance pavilion at Exchange Place was constructed at a cost of $66 million, and was dedicated on September 13, 1989. At this time, the surrounding Paulus Hook area was beginning to undergo revitalization with new office building construction. In April 1994, a new entrance to the Exchange Place station was opened, making the station ADA accessible. The new entrance was glass-enclosed and featured two elevators which led to a lower-level passageway 63 feet (19 m) down, from where another elevator went down the short distance to platform level.

Exchange Place station exterior

The Exchange Place station was closed as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks, due to water from firefighting flooding the tunnels. Before the attacks, the station served 16,000 passengers daily. The World Trade Center station was also crucial, as that station contained a loop that enabled trains to turn around and reverse direction. New trackwork was installed at a cost of $160 million, which included an interlocking to allow the trains to switch tracks, thus enabling trains to terminate at Exchange Place. While the station was closed, the eight-car-long station platforms were lengthened by two car lengths so they could accommodate 10-car trains. On June 29, 2003, the Exchange Place PATH station reopened, restoring services to Newark and Hoboken. On November 23, 2003, service was restored to the World Trade Center site with the reopening of the World Trade Center station.

In February 2006, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) established a pilot project to test airport-style security screening at the Exchange Place station.

In 2012, the station was inundated by 13 million US gallons (49,000 m) of saltwater from the Hudson River, which had overflowed as a result of Hurricane Sandy. The PANYNJ later announced a resiliency project in which it planned to replace the glass revolving doors and windows that surround the turnstiles with a seven-foot-high concrete wall and aquarium glass several inches thick. The project would include in the installation of two Kevlar curtains.

In June 2019, the Port Authority released the PATH Improvement Plan. As part of the plan, two additional cross-corridors were to be added at Exchange Place. The construction of the cross-corridors was expected to be completed by 2022.

From January 2019 until June 2020, the Newark-World Trade Center route terminated at Exchange Place on almost all weekends for Sandy-related repairs, except on holiday weekends. The truncation was initially expected to last through all of 2020, but ended in June 2020, six months ahead of schedule.

Station layout

The station entrance is located approximately 100 feet (30 m) west of the former, original station entrance. The station features three 150-foot (46 m)-long escalators that go down long and provide access to the platform level, located 75 feet (23 m) beneath street level. Connections are available to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail at street level.

West of the station (railroad north), there are five trackways: two outer tracks for Hoboken, two inner tracks for Newark, and one stub-end track connecting each of the Newark tracks. East of the station (railroad south), both lines continue into their weekday terminus.

The station has two vestibules, each containing one side platform and one track for trains in a given direction. The platforms are connected through several corridors. There are switches within the platform at the far western end of the station, where the HOB-WTC line's tracks diverge. As a result, only NWK-WTC trains can serve the whole platform.

Nearby attractions

Nearby attractions include the Colgate Clock, Goldman Sachs Tower, Harborside Financial Center, Paulus Hook, and the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Exchange Place (PATH station).
Google Maps Street View
image icon Christopher Columbus Drive entrance
image icon Exchange Place entrance
image icon Turnstiles
image icon Platform
image icon Escalators
  1. ^ "M'Adoo Tunnels Are Thrown Open". The Paterson Morning Call. July 20, 1909. pp. 1, 12. Retrieved November 23, 2019 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  2. ^ French, Kenneth (2002). Railroads of Hoboken and Jersey City. Arcadia Publishing. p. 93. ISBN 978-0738509662.
  3. ^ "PATH Ridership Report". Port Authority NY NJ. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2018. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  4. ^ "Motorman on Trial in Fatal Tube Crash". New York Times. December 15, 1942. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  5. ^ "'Longer' Waiting for PATH Riders". The Jersey Journal. June 25, 1987. p. 53. Retrieved December 21, 2024.
  6. ^ Stapinski, Helen (September 12, 1989). "'Exchange Place Day' will celebrate years of change". The Jersey Journal. pp. 1, 6. Retrieved December 14, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "New Exchange Place Entrance Improves Access to Station". Pathways. 26 (1). Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation: 1. April 1994.
  8. ^ Ross, Bruce (May 1991). "Access for the disabled; Port Authority of New York and New Jersey policy for disabled passengers". Mass Transit. p. Vol. 18; No. 4–5; Pg. 40.
  9. ^ Weiser, Benjamin (June 29, 2003). "Closed Since 9/11, a PATH Station Is Set to Reopen Today". New York Times. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  10. ^ Dougherty, Peter (2006) [2002]. Tracks of the New York City Subway 2006 (3rd ed.). Dougherty. OCLC 49777633 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ "Chapter 1: Restoring and Renewing Lower Manhattan's Transportation Infrastructure" (PDF). Renew NYC. Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
  12. ^ Dunlap, David W. (November 24, 2003). "Again, Trains Put the World In Trade Center". The New York Times. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  13. ^ Garcia, Michelle (February 8, 2006). "Rail Passengers Screened In Test of Tighter Security". Washington Post. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  14. ^ McGeehan, Patrick; Hu, Winnie (October 29, 2017). "Five Years After Sandy, Are We Better Prepared?". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  15. ^ "PATH Implementation Plan" (PDF). PANYNJ. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 21, 2019. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  16. ^ "Port Authority announces plan to increase PATH capacity, reduce delays". ABC7 New York. June 20, 2019. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
  17. ^ Higgs, Larry (June 20, 2019). "PATH will spend $1B to ease overcrowding, delays that mess up your commute". nj.com. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
  18. ^ "Bringing PATH into the 21st Century". panynj.gov. Retrieved February 25, 2020.
  19. ^ Walker, Ameena (December 5, 2018). "World Trade Center's PATH station will close for 45 weekends for repairs". Curbed NY. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
  20. ^ "Six Months Ahead of Schedule, PATH WTC Station Reopens on Weekends Following Extensive Tunnel Repairs Necessitated by Superstorm Sandy". Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. June 5, 2020.
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