High school juniors tour the Fulton Transit Center site

A dozen future architects, designers, and engineers gathered this month to get an insiders glimpse of Lower Manhattan construction. The group consisted of 11 high school juniors, their teacher and a chaperone from the High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture in Ozone Park, Queens.

For the second year, the school selected students to attend a construction-site tour hosted by the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Centers (LMCCC) Opportunity Downtown program. This years field trip brought the 11th graders behind the scenes of the Fulton Street Transit Center and into the nearly completed hotel at 130 Cedar Street hotel. The students wrapped up the visit with an in-depth virtual tour of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

There is no better way for New Yorks future architects, engineers, and trades people to understand their industry than seeing active construction sites and posing questions to the project leaders, said LMCCC Executive Director Bob Harvey, who shared an overview of his agency at the tours outset. Were very proud that our Opportunity Downtown program can host these bright students, and that our rebuilding partners can share some of their unique experiences with them.

The students, outfitted in safety gear and work boots, began at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Dey Street Concourse tunnel. The tunnel is now a bare concrete box stretching from the Fulton Street 4/5 southbound platform all the way to a mezzanine below the Cortlandt Street R/W station, where it will eventually connect to the WTC Transportation Hub. MTA Project Executive Uday Durg, P.E., said that his agency recently awarded the contract that will complete the concourse, including its infrastructure, entrances, and interior finishes, as well as the new Dey Street entrance house on Broadway.

Durg also led the students through the main Transit Center building site, where workers poured the concrete decks of its new lower levels. They also got to view the end of some demolition inside the station, where the A/C switchback ramps once stood. The group proceeded into the landmark Corbin Building and got a special peek at the basement area, where underpinning has helped ensure the structures future.

The group then got a preview inside the new hotel at 130 Cedar Street, where the Club Quarters Hotel recently opened on several floors, with more to come next month. One of the hotels special features is a rooftop bar, still in the final phase of construction, that overlooks the World Trade Center site. The special locale gave the students a one-of-a-kind, open-air view of the bustling site, where they could take pictures and ask questions.

A National 9/11 Memorial presentation concluded the tour, giving the students a better sense of the design, coordination, and construction that has gone into that mega project. Architect Mark Wagner shared images of the site as its evolved since 2001, explaining how artifacts were chosen for preservation, the engineering of the waterfalls and landscaping, the projects extensive infrastructure planning, and other information about the Memorial as it enters its final two years of construction.

One of the goals of our program is to broaden the skill set and expand the perspectives of those interested in construction and related fields, said Beverly Bobb, the LMCCCs Opportunity Downtown manager. And there may be no better way to inspire tomorrows builders than to give a firsthand tour of such an active construction area as Lower Manhattan. We think theyll appreciate it for their entire careers.

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