New York Layover: The World Trade Center
Part of the full New York Layover: Grand Central From JFK
Four blocks of Lower Manhattan in New York hold the two sunken pools of the 9/11 Memorial, a station hall built out of white steel ribs, an 18th-century stone chapel and an observatory a hundred floors up.
One World Observatory takes 47 seconds to reach
One World Trade Center is the tapered glass tower at the northwest corner of the site, its sides narrowing into eight triangles as they rise, and its observatory occupies floors 100, 101 and 102. The lift covers all 102 in 47 seconds, which is the part people remember afterwards along with the view.
Adult admission is $38 and the doors are open 9am to 8pm daily. From up there the harbour is laid out flat: the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazzano bridge across the Narrows, Brooklyn and Queens running away east. Slots do fill on clear evenings, so booking a time before you arrive is what stops the visit from stretching past the hour it should take.
Two one-acre voids sit in the towers’ footprints
The memorial occupies the ground where the towers stood, and Michael Arad’s design does one thing: it leaves the footprints empty. Each pool is an acre square, water runs down all four granite walls into a basin, and the basin drains into a second, smaller void at its centre that you cannot see the bottom of.
The names of 2,983 people are cut clean through the bronze parapets around the rims rather than engraved into them, so they are lit from underneath after dark. The plaza is free and open 8am to 8pm, every day. The museum underneath is a separate ticket at $33 and a separate hour and a half, with last entry at 6pm.
The Oculus is a station hall built out of white steel ribs
East of the pools, Santiago Calatrava’s transport hub opened in 2016 over the commuter railway platforms: a hall of white steel ribs curving up from a marble floor to a skylight that runs the full length of the roof. It cost about four billion dollars, which is the fact everyone leads with, but the reason to walk through it is that the ribs make the whole space read as one object rather than a building with a roof on.
There is no ticket and no barrier; the platforms are below and the hall above is a public thoroughfare. It also connects underground to the towers and west to Brookfield Place, which matters here more than it would elsewhere.
St Paul’s Chapel has stood on Broadway since 1766
Two blocks east of the pools, on Broadway at Fulton Street, a Georgian stone church sits behind a railed churchyard with One World Trade Center directly behind it. St Paul’s Chapel is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, and George Washington worshipped here after his inauguration in 1789; his pew is still in the north aisle.
It stood a block from the towers and came through their collapse without a broken window, and for eight months afterwards it worked as a round-the-clock relief centre for the people clearing the site. Entry is free.
The plaza, the churchyard and the walk down to the harbour are all open ground with no covered route between them, so on a wet or a cold day whatever you are carrying is out in it the whole time.
The subway from Fulton Street needs one change for the AirTrain
Fulton Street station sits two blocks east of the memorial and is one of the larger interchanges in the system. For John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), take the A up to a Midtown stop and change to the E line for Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue, where the AirTrain starts; the whole subway leg is $3.00 and runs about an hour. The AirTrain’s own $8.75 is charged separately by the Port Authority.
Reckon on an hour and a quarter from this plaza to a terminal. If you have six hours rather than four, the Grand Central route through Midtown is twenty minutes north on the same fare and gives the day a second half indoors.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near the World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City?
Start on the memorial plaza, which is free and open 8am to 8pm every day: two one-acre pools sunk into the exact footprints of the towers, with 2,983 names cut through the bronze parapets around them. The Oculus, the white-ribbed station hall next to it, is also free and takes ten minutes to walk through. St Paul's Chapel two blocks east has stood on Broadway since 1766 and costs nothing either. The paid stops are the museum below the plaza and One World Observatory on floors 100 to 102, and on a short gap you would pick one, not both. Three hours covers the free half comfortably.
Is the 9/11 Memorial the same thing as the museum?
No, and the difference matters on a tight schedule. The memorial is the outdoor plaza with the two pools and the Survivor Tree: free, unticketed, open 8am to 8pm. The museum is underground beneath it, holds the artefacts and the exhibitions, charges $33 for an adult, and takes most people between an hour and a half and two hours once you add the security line. Last entry is 6pm even though the doors close at 8pm, which catches people out.
Which is worth more on a short visit, the observatory or the museum?
The observatory, if you have under three hours and want to leave with a sense of the city rather than a sense of the day. The lift to floors 100 to 102 takes 47 seconds and adult admission is $38, against $33 and a much longer visit downstairs. The museum is the more serious experience and deserves the time it takes, so save it for a day when you are not watching a departure board. Both sit within two minutes of each other on the same site.
Is there anywhere to shelter here if the weather turns?
The Oculus, which is the reason it matters more than a station usually would. The plaza, the walk down to the harbour and the ferry piers are all open ground with nothing covered between them, so a wet afternoon on this site is a wet afternoon. The Oculus's marble floor and the shopping concourse under it connect underground to the towers and to Brookfield Place on the far side of West Street, which is about as far as you can get here without going outside.