Oculus: New York’s Eye-Popping One Stop Shop

If you’re ever in New York City, one of its newest attraction is a subway station. Well, not just a subway station, it is possibly the grandest, most beautiful subway station in the world.

Last year, this highly anticipated and expensive new World Trade Center transportation hub finally opened to the public. Dubbed the Oculus, it has been under construction for years at a staggering price tag of $2 billion, but rose to over $3.9 billion as work and time dragged on. At last, commuters and tourists can now enjoy the beautiful work of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s bird-in-flight design and decide for themselves if the result was worth the years of delays and cost overruns.

This station serves as the terminal for the Newark–World Trade Center and Hoboken–World Trade Center routes. Oculus opened on March 4, 2016 and replaces a temporary station that opened in 2003 to serve the financial district following the the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Before my trip to New York, I had seen photos of the building from my friend’s Instagram posts. And I have to admit, the building is quite an amazing architectural feat. It has been a while since a new structure has wowed me — and Oculus certainly does that and more. Mere photos and descriptions don’t really do this place justice — it is so simple yet so grand. Not much modern architecture can claim that. That feeling of walking into this place for the first time was the same feeling I got when I first entere St Peter’s Basilica. You just don’t know where to look first. While inside, it felt as if I had stepped into a body of a whale ora space ship. Definitely worth the visit!