“The transit center, very much, is the tip of the iceberg,” said Andrew Whalley, who spoke for Grimshaw, the architecture firm designing the station. “It’s very much about connecting the dots.”

The dots in this case are 12 separate subway lines, spread over 1000 feet from the 2/3 station on the east to the R/W station about 1000 feet on the west. Private transit companies built these stations over a span of about 30 years in the early 1900s with no thought to a creating a coherent whole; turning the stations from competitors into collaborators has proven to be a very difficult project.

The new station leaves an opening to connect to any future 2nd Avenue Subway. It will also connect to the Ground Zero transit hub a block to the west.

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