World Trade Center (PATH Station) - Hudson Terminal

Hudson Terminal

Hudson Terminal was built by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad at the turn of the twentieth century and was located between Greenwich, Cortlandt, Church, and Fulton Streets. The Hudson Terminal included two 22-story office buildings located above the station.

The terminal was an architectural and engineering marvel of its time, designed with ramps to allow pedestrian traffic to flow in and out of the station quickly and easily. The station was served by two single-track tubes connected by a loop to speed train movements. The loop included five tracks and 3 platforms (2 center island and one side) and is somewhat similar to the current arrangement. By 1914, passenger volume at the Hudson Terminal had reached 30,535,500 annually. Volume nearly doubled by 1922, with 59,221,354 passengers that year at the Hudson Terminal.

Overall ridership on New Jersey's Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M) declined substantially from a high of 113 million riders in 1927 to 26 million in 1958, after new automobile tunnels and bridges opened across the Hudson River. The State of New Jersey was interested in getting the Port Authority to take over the railroad, but the Port Authority long viewed it as something unprofitable that they were never interested in. In the late 1950s, the Port Authority proposed to build a "world trade center" in New York City, on the east side of Lower Manhattan along the East River.

As a bi-state agency, Port Authority projects require approval from both the states of New Jersey and New York. Toward the end of 1961, negotiations with outgoing New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner regarding the World Trade Center project reached a stalemate. In December 1961, Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin met with newly elected New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes, and made a proposal to shift the World Trade Center project to a west side site where the Hudson Terminal was located.

In acquiring the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, the Port Authority would also acquire the Hudson Terminal and other buildings which were deemed obsolete. On January 22, 1962, the two states reached an agreement to allow the Port Authority to take over the railroad and to build the World Trade Center on Manhattan's lower west side. The shift in location for the World Trade Center to a site more convenient to New Jersey, together with Port Authority acquisition of the H&M Railroad, brought New Jersey to agreement in support of the World Trade Center project.