(Bloomberg) -- Transit riders in downtown Manhattan’s new subway hub snapped photos and craned necks to gaze up at the 53-foot glass enclosure that crowns the $1.4 billion Fulton Center.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority opened the site today, replacing a decaying underground warren. It links nine different lines to accommodate 300,000 daily riders and renovates a station that was partially ruined in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Riders are met with digital signs, polished tiles and ample sunlight.

“This is arguably one of our first 21st century transit hubs in New York,” said Richard Sarrach, an architecture professor at Pratt Institute in New York. “It’s really a proper arrival point for hundreds of thousands of people every single day.”

It wasn’t an easy path. Initial plans called for a $750 million renovation that would finish in 2007. The MTA in 2009 pushed the opening to 2014. Still, gone are the days of rushing through a dark and dirty station. At Fulton Street, appreciative remarks could be heard above the normal chatter of the city.

“It’s dazzling,” Steven Donnely, a 42-year-old free-lance writer, said while looking up at the skylight.

Rare Gem

Trains ran on schedule during the first morning commute, said Kevin Ortiz, an MTA spokesman. The agency added staff to help riders navigate the new facility, which also includes 65,000 square feet of retail space.

The station stands out in a region that depends on a mass transit system devised and constructed in haphazard fashion beginning in the early 1900s.

Riders have grown accustomed to subway stations with cracked floors, leaking ceilings and narrow passageways. Suburban commuters bemoan the 1963 demolition of the original Pennsylvania Station, designed in the Beaux-Arts style. Its replacement, which serves New Jersey Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and six MTA subway lines, is a grimy, low-ceilinged maze folded under Madison Square Garden.

The new Fulton Center is the first major station renovation for the MTA, the largest U.S. mass-transit system, since its 2009 overhaul of its South Ferry station at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 destroyed that $527 million makeover. The MTA expects to reopen the renovated South Ferry station in 2017.

Form, Function

Today, passengers making their maiden voyages through Fulton Center said they found it both beautiful and workable.

“It’s a really functional work of art,” said Phil Wilde, 63, a filmmaker. “I just walked around and could feel like I was going in all the right directions.”

Getting passengers to and from the different subway platforms in an easier, more direct way was a key part of the renovation. There are 10 escalators, 15 elevators and brightly lit paths to direct riders to trains.

The aesthetic centerpiece is a 53-foot-diameter glass and steel shell that hangs over the site’s atrium. The structure, called the Sky Reflector-Net, allows year-round daylight. The spiraling structure includes 952 reflective panels attached to a cable system.

“Customers are getting off the train and are in essence surprised or in awe,” Ortiz said.

Special Reports /

Sept. 11-damaged subway station reopens after $1.4B renovation

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