Due to budget limitations, plans for the Fulton Street Transit Center’s main building are being scaled back by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) capital-construction planners and design team as of January 2008. More details are expected later in winter 2008, including a new project budget.
But despite possible changes to the originally planned glass-and-steel oculus, other improvements to the station are either complete or proceeding as planned  -- helping to sort out the crowded station that currently serves nearly 300,000 riders a day with its 12 subway lines on five scattered platforms.

Work to reconfigure the maze of ramps and passageways within the station itself includes the new Dey Street Pedestrian Concourse that will be built under Broadway and westward below Dey Street. The concourse will have its own “headhouse” (entrance) on the southwest corner of Broadway and Dey. The much anticipated pedestrian link, about 29 feet in width, will connect Fulton Center trains with the R/W line at Cortlandt Street and the World Trade Center transportation hub -- home to the PATH and, possibly, a direct rail line to regional airports.

MTA crews also are working to open up corridors between subway lines and build new entrances -- helping to reduce platform crowding and reduce train congestion. New mezzanine-to-platform stairways are now operational on the 2/3 Fulton Street line, and new entrances to the south end of the 4/5 platform opened at Broadway at Maiden Lane (to the east) and Liberty Street (to the west) in 2006 and 2007.

Mysore Nagaraja, president of MTA Capital Construction, said that the design answers the Fulton Street station's top priorities -- ease of movement and reduced travel time -- by "rationalizing" the entire complex and using consistencies in design, such as easy-to-understand signage and both natural and artificial light.
Most pleasing to those Lower Manhattanites proud of the area's history may be the designers' clever incorporation of the Corbin Building (circa 1889), which sits at the northeast corner of Broadway and John Street. According to plans, the nine-story “proto-skyscraper” will be fully refurbished, with its ground and lower levels transformed into a station entryway.

Designers also plan to restore the original Fulton Street station's mosaics and terra cotta tile work along the 4/5 line, again carefully reserving a place for century-old craftsmanship within the contemporary design.

Construction on the new station, which will be built and opened in phases, began in early 2005 and is slated for completion in late 2010.

Click here to see the latest information on the construction of the Fulton Street Transit Center.

Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.