NEW YORK, NY January 23, 2004 — With the unveiling of the new downtown transit hub, officials say the last of the major pieces of the World Trade Center site design are in place. Civic boosters and critics alike say the design is part of a new moment in New York City architecture. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.

It looks like a phoenix rising from the ashes, all white steel ribs connected by clear glass. Two canopies arc above a public plaza, with the airy atrium shaped like half an egg, lying on its side. The building perches between tall towers on the North and South. To the west lies a rebuilt Greenwich street, beyond that, the memorial plaza. In a space crowded with office buildings, the station is meant to let in air and most of all, light. Architect Santiago Calatrava says the light will reach the platforms, 60 feet below ground.

Calatrava: We have created a very transparent building, a building done with steel, glass, concrete, and light, as a construction material, you could imagine

Calatrava hopes his building will be part of an old tradition in New York architecture - a tradition of transforming functional spaces into monuments. He cited the Brooklyn Bridge, and Grand Central station, which he called the most beautiful public space in the world.

Calatrava: Embodying an spirit in itself who is a gift to the people who every day goes across it working hard getting to their homes, coming back it is also a gate and it has been for us the deepest inspirational object.

The tradition of grand public spaces is one that has receded in recent years. Architects say much of the design of the last few decades has been constrained by risk-averse commercial developers. But now, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says, in New York, all that is changing.

Bloomberg: if you think about it there is a veritable renaissance of building design that is taking place in NYC.

The Mayor ticked off a list of projects - Norman Foster's Hearst building, David Childs' Time Warner towers at Columbus circle, Frank Gehry projects in Chelsea, and perhaps, in Brooklyn, at a new nets stadium.

Bloomberg: These are the world's greatest architects and think about it they've chosen to work here and developers here have been willing to go and to let these people think outside the box.
That renaissance is directly tied to the September 11 attacks, says Robert A.M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

Stern: the trade center disaster also opened up this amazing realization on the part of many people who hadn't given it any thought before that architecture was incredibly important. The buildings were themselves the subject of attack because they were symbols.

That has created an opening, Stern says, for the very best architectural talent from around the globe. But grand architecture may take a while to grow on some commuters. Over in the temporary Path station, commuters were agnostic about the design

Commuter: its awfully modern
Commuter: um you know as long as it helps my commute I guess its fine with me.

For Calatrava, easing New Yorker's commutes is as important as art.

Calatrava: Feeling me so welcoming here feeling part of the overall tissue that this city is mobilizing first of all I feel me to be like a new Yorker you see believe me I feel me one of yours.

So far, Calatrava has built his edgy, arcing buildings in places like the Milwaukee, the Canary Islands, and Lisbon. In 2008, when his Lower Manhattan train station is complete, New York will have one of its own. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.