The 10 Year Plan: Touring NYC: The NYC Subway Art Tour (Part 4 of 6)

From Chinatown, we traveled further downtown to the Cortlandt Street Station, not far from Wall Street, the World Trade Center and the Hudson river.

Cortlandt Street Station:

Artist Margie Hughto first beautified the Cortlandt Street Station in 1997 with a series of handmade ceramic tiles entitled Trade, Treasure and Travel. The title and substance of the art was appropriate for the area where the station is located, in the Financial District. In fact, the station is situated near the former bank of the Hudson river. In the map below, Cortlandt Street is an east-west street starting at Greenwich Street. All of the land between Greenwich Street and the Hudson River was once water and is now landfill. In other words, the former and new World Trade Center buildings are built on landfill where the Hudson River once coursed 200+ years ago.

The shaded area represents a 1776 map laid on top of a map of Manhattan today

Cortlandt Street appears in the bottom left corner of this 1776 map of lower Manhattan. Greenwich Street runs next to the river. So, in 1776, Cortlandt Street ended near the Hudson River. Today, Cortlandt Street is several blocks away from the river.

A pictorial comparison is striking. The first picture is a rendering of Manhattan island ("Mannahatta" in native language) before the arrival of Europeans. The second picture shows modern Gotham. Comparing the two reveals much of lower Manhattan is landfill where the Hudson and East Rivers once ran. The park area in the second picture, at the lower tip of Manhattan, is landfill. Castle Clinton, now landlocked, was once on a small island in the Hudson River connected to land by a wooden walkway. Over time, the area around Castle Clinton was filled in to create what is now Battery Park.

The Cortlandt Street Station was partially destroyed on 9/11, but all of the artwork was intact because it was so well made. Unfortunately, it was so well affixed to the wall that many tiles broke when they were removed for repairs to the station itself. The tiles (pictured below) were reinstalled in 2011.

According to the MTA website, the artist said in 2011, "'I thought about all the different peoples, products, objects, and money that passed through the area, and I visualized a treasure vault filled with coins, gems, and artifacts - rich, golden, glowing, and somewhat mysterious. Central images feature a bull and a bear, the financial world's warring mascots, and a large old-fashioned compass and a chart of stars by which mariners found their way."

Sailing ships

The Bear

The Bull

Lower Manhattan, with the Brooklyn Bridge and the World Trade Center

The compass

Whitehall Street Station:

From Cortlandt Street, we traveled to Whitehall Street Station, where the ferry terminals are located. The street is named for the former home that stood on land near the station. The home belonged to Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Director-General of then New Amsterdam in the New Netherland colony. When the Dutch ceded the territory to England in 1664, the English renamed the house White Hall, like the seat of government in London. The house was whitewashed, hence the name. The house is depicted below in the original terra cotta picture in the station. A "now" photo shows the area today.

Whitehall Street Station: Then, the home of Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant

Whitehall Street Station: Now, area where the White Hall building was located

Following renovation of the station, artist Frank Giorgini installed artwork in 2000 entitled Passages. The artwork is a sort of time machine, with views of New York over the centuries, from pre-European times to the present.