The Chambers Street–World Trade Center/Park Place/Cortlandt Street station is a New York City Subway station complex on the IND Eighth Avenue Line, IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, and BMT Broadway Line. Located on Church Street between Chambers and Cortlandt Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, it is served by the 2, A and E trains at all times; W train on weekdays; 3, C and R trains at all times except late nights; and N train during late nights.
The station also connects to the PATH via the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, and to the nearby Fulton Center via the Dey Street Passageway.
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History
IND Eighth Avenue Line
Construction and opening New York City mayor John Francis Hylan's original plans for the Independent Subway System (IND), proposed in 1922, included building over of new lines and taking over nearly of existing lines, which would compete with the IRT and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the two major subway operators of the time. On December 9, 1924, the New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) gave preliminary approval for the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line. This line consisted of a corridor connecting Inwood, Manhattan, to Downtown Brooklyn, running largely under Eighth Avenue but also paralleling Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue in Lower Manhattan. The BOT announced a list of stations on the new line in February 1928, with a station near the intersection of Church and Fulton Streets.
Work on the IND Eighth Avenue Line began in 1925. Most of the Eighth Avenue Line was dug using a cheap cut-and-cover method. As part of the project, Church Street was widened, allowing the line's four tracks to be placed on one level rather than two. By August 1930, the BOT reported that the Eighth Avenue Line was nearly completed, except for the stations between Chambers Street–Hudson Terminal and West Fourth Street, which were only 21 percent completed. The entire line was completed by September 1931, except for the installation of turnstiles. A preview event for the new subway was hosted on September 8, 1932, two days before the official opening. The Chambers Street and Hudson Terminal stations on the Eighth Avenue Line opened just after midnight on September 10, 1932, as the southern terminus of the city-operated IND's initial segment, the Eighth Avenue Line between Chambers Street–Hudson Terminal and 207th Street.
Later years A passageway from the express platform to the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M)'s Hudson Terminal was opened in 1949, after 14 months of construction. The passageway measured wide and long. Construction contractor Great Atlantic Construction Company described the tunnel as "one of the most difficult of engineering feats", as the passageway had to pass above the H&M tunnels while avoiding various pipes, wires, water mains, and cable car lines.
In April 1993, the New York State Legislature agreed to give the MTA $9.6 billion for capital improvements. Some of the funds would be used to renovate nearly one hundred New York City Subway stations, including Chambers Street and World Trade Center. A late-1990s renovation saw prefabricated tile panels installed on the trackside wall of the express platform, with a tile band of Concord Violet bordered in black and "CHAMBERS" in white Copperplate lettering on black tiles on each panel, and on the local platform's walls the new tiles were installed in sections with a slightly different shade of dark blue violet bordered in black; no station name captions were placed. The trim lines in the entryways and passages use the Concord Violet color rather than the blue violet.
Around 2:00 p.m. on January 23, 2005, a fire destroyed the interlocking plant at Chambers Street. As a result, two-thirds of A trains were canceled or rerouted, including all rush-hour trips to Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street. C service was completely suspended and replaced by the A and V in Brooklyn and A, B, D, and E in Manhattan. Some newspaper articles blamed the fire on a homeless person trying to keep warm, but that was never confirmed. Until January 28, the MTA rerouted the A to the Rutgers Street Tunnel during late nights. Initial estimates gave a time of three to five years to restore full service because the destroyed equipment was custom-made for the MTA. That was later cut back to six to nine months to bring back normal operations. However, C service and 70% of A service was restored ten days after the fire, and the rush-hour A trips were restored on February 14, with full service returning on April 21. However, effects of the fire continued into 2006 because the equipment had not been replaced.
IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line first opened as a shuttle to 34th Street–Penn Station on June 3, 1917. The line was extended south to South Ferry on July 1, 1918; the Park Place station opened on the same date, and was served by a shuttle between Chambers Street and Wall Street, on the line's Brooklyn Branch. The new "H" system was implemented on August 1, 1918, joining the two halves of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and sending all West Side trains south from Times Square. As a result, shuttle service to this station was replaced by through service.
The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. During the 1964–1965 fiscal year, the platforms at Park Place, along with those at four other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, were lengthened to to accommodate a ten-car train of IRT cars.
After the New York State Legislature gave the MTA funding for capital improvements in 1993, the MTA used some of these funds to renovate the Park Place station. Between April 3 and October 1, 1999, this station was closed for escalator replacement and a station rehabilitation. During mid-2026, when the adjacent portion of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line was closed during weekends, the MTA rehabilitated the Park Place station.
BMT Broadway Line
Opening and 20th-century modifications
The Cortlandt Street station on the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s Broadway Line opened on January 5, 1918. The station's platforms originally could only fit six cars. In 1926, the New York City Board of Transportation received bids for the lengthening of platforms at nine stations on the Broadway Line, including the Cortlandt Street station, to accommodate eight-car trains. Edwards & Flood submitted a low bid of $101,775 for the project. The platform-lengthening project was completed in 1927, bringing the length of the platforms to . The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940.
The station was overhauled in the late 1970s, with repairs made to the structural and cosmetic appearance. The original BMT wall tiles were removed and the "new" station walls contained cinderblock tiles (colored white with small recesses painted yellow), with black and white station-name signs bolted into the recesses. Lighting was converted from incandescent to fluorescent and staircases and platform edges were repaired.
After the New York State Legislature gave the MTA funding for capital improvements in 1993, the MTA used some of these funds to renovate the Cortlandt Street station. Much of the cosmetic change that came with the 1970s renovation was undone in a 1998–1999 renovation. In addition to "state-of-repair" work and upgrades for ADA accessibility, the station's original 1918 tilework was restored. Other improvements were made to the public address system, directional signage, and concrete trackbeds.
Post-9/11 During the September 11 attacks in 2001, a train operator reported an "explosion" to the MTA's Subway Control Center one minute after the first plane struck the World Trade Center's North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Subway service was halted shortly afterward, and as a result, no one in the subway system died. The station sustained significant damage during the collapse of the World Trade Center. It was closed for repairs, which included removal of debris, fixing structural damage, and restoring the track beds, which had suffered flood damage in the aftermath of the collapse. The station reopened on September 15, 2002.
On August 20, 2005, the station was closed again for construction of the Dey Street Passageway below Dey Street as part of the Fulton Center project. At the same time, the station was made ADA-accessible in both directions. Previously, the station was accessible on the southbound side only via the temporary PATH World Trade Center station's elevator. MTA posters and flyers at that time indicated the station would reopen in the spring of 2006, and later by spring of 2007. The northbound side of the station was rebuilt and finally reopened on November 25, 2009. The rebuilt southbound platform reopened on September 6, 2011, while continuing excavation along the Church Street side of the World Trade Center site was being performed.
The Dey Street Passageway, outside of the fare control, connects the Fulton Street station complex to the Cortlandt Street station and to the World Trade Center Transportation Hub. It opened on November 10, 2014, while the World Trade Center was still under construction. With the opening of the Dey Street Passageway, ridership at the station nearly tripled, from 1,500,040 in 2014 to 4,270,036 in 2016. On December 29, 2017, the Cortlandt Street station was connected to the other platforms in the complex. That date also saw the opening of a passageway connecting the World Trade Center station with 2 World Trade Center, and passageways connecting the southbound platform of Cortlandt Street to the Transportation Hub's Oculus head house and to 4 World Trade Center. Fare control areas had to be reconfigured. In 2024, Skanska was hired to replace 21 escalators across the New York City Subway system for $146 million, including two escalators at the Park Place station.
Station layout Chambers Street–World Trade Center/Park Place GroundStreet levelExit/entranceBasement 1MezzanineFare control, station agentBasement 2Northbound local← toward () Passageway to at and PATH at WTC Transportation HubNorthbound local← toward ()Northbound express← toward () ← toward () Southbound express toward , , or () → toward () →Basement 3Northbound ← toward ()← toward ()Southbound toward () → toward (Fulton Street) →
Cortlandt Street
Exits Exits/entrances through turnstiles to Church Street are located in the mezzanine of the IND station, along with a few High Entrance-Exit Turnstiles (HEETs). There are street stairs: at all four corners of Church and Chambers Streets at both western corners of Church and Warren Streets at both western corners of Church and Murray Streets at all four corners of Church Street and Park Place; there is also an elevator to the local platform at the southeastern corner at the southwestern corner of Church and Barclay Streets at the northwestern and southeastern corners of Church and Vesey Streets at the northeastern corner of Church and Fulton Streets
There is also a passageway to the PATH station at the extreme southern end of the local IND platform (see ), providing ADA-accessible access to the local platform.