Loser of The Year: Chambers St. Station (J,Z)

Feed Me's Anonymous Transit Expert ranks New York's spaces.

Feed Me’s Anonymous Transit Expert is helping me build a modern Metro Section. Earlier this month he wrote about the history of Rockefeller Center’s tree, and the importance of parks to New York City. The Anonymous Transit Expert has to stay anonymous because he has a Real Job in a Real Office, but you’ll be seeing more of him around here in his series, Stand Clear.

The Sublime In-Between

Three days a week I march through the middle of the World Trade Center’s Oculus “transportation hub”, as its owners call it. This underground assemblage of hundreds of thousands of commuters from every corner of New York’s metro was, when it opened its doors in 2016 after over a decade of construction, the most expensive train station in the world (an honor the Port Authority would like you to forget). It is clear before entry that no expense was spared in its construction. Ten thousand tons of Italian steel form the shape of, architect Santiago Calatrava says, a dove taking flight from a child’s hands. Three hundred fifty thousand square feet of marble clad every visible surface.

Four billion dollars of materials and sweat — some of it unavoidably but regrettably shed from the foreheads of consultants. It may still leak from its joints in the rain. The tiled floor may require a veritable army of attendants to maintain its clean edges. But it makes you feel something while you’re in it, or moving through it, delivering on an implicit but oft-shirked responsibility of projects for the public, that is: to weave common threads and promote some sense of shared experience. That it merges together a dozen(!) subway lines, the PATH system to New Jersey and the Brookfield Place ferry terminal is the physical proof. That everybody in town asserts an opinion about it when prompted, or confesses to have felt while moving through it, is the intangible.

Trying to discern the meaning of how I felt about the only moving part of my daily slog, I consulted an architect who despises the lower Manhattan office towers I work in. Perhaps sensing a layman, she directed me to an obvious example of the pure sublime in architecture — Etienne-Louis Boullée’s unbuilt Newton’s Cenotaph.

Etienne-Louis Boullée’s unbuilt Newton’s Cenotaph.

Were you an 18th-century Englishman venturing into the empty sphere, you would experience what it might feel like to be an atom hurtling through empty space, acted on by undiscovered forces known only to the builders. That feeling of, temporarily, being completely enveloped and elevated by something larger than yourself. In the present, you might feel this way most acutely in the crossings of the famous European cathedrals, or the base of a skyscraper should you have the sense to look up. In the natural world, it may be the summit of a mountain or the pool at the base of a waterfall that makes you feel small enough to straighten your shoulders. This thinking about when and how I feel moving through the city and the world gave me pause, and motivated me to consider the year’s winners and losers — transient spaces where I puffed my chest with a little pride having felt something, and those I wish I’d never have to set foot in again.

The Winners

LaGuardia Airport Terminals B and C: If Vincent Scully’s quip about the old Penn Station rings true to you, then it will doubly in the inverse for LaGuardia. What was once a bona fide dump to be avoided at all costs has transformed itself, with the help of billions of dollars from airlines, into a truly pleasant place to spend an hour before takeoff. Security lines move briskly. You no longer have to remove your laptops from your bag, if for some reason you’re flying without pre-check. It’s home to Delta’s largest SkyClub, a strange fountain if you’re into that sort of thing, and falling delay rates thanks to jetways that actually work. The new PDX may be the absolute pinnacle of domestic airports, but at LaGuardia it’s nice to have domestic air travel not feel like being fed through a wood chipper in slow motion.

The Great Borough Bake-Off: This place, itself within the Museum of the City of New York, is an eclectic exhibition of amateur and professional gingerbread structures modeled after New York’s landmarks. Artistic interpretations of skyscrapers, city blocks, cemeteries, Belmont Park (though I much prefer the Belmont run at Saratoga), and of course transit infrastructure make, in concert with the rest of the museum, a lovely morning. I hadn’t been until Feed Me sent me on assignment to the bake-off, but I’ll be back when the exhibitions rotate. Seeing placards listing the bakers as “real estate broker” or “student” made me proud that people were willing to give this a shot and have their work displayed. Paging Gaby Scelzo — what’s your entry next year?

The Loser

Chambers Street Station (JZ): The much-maligned station glimpsed for a moment in 1997’s “Devil’s Advocate” is the embodiment of American infrastructure’s slow 20th-century decay. Soaring ceilings are rusting, unpainted, and peeling. Four of the eight platforms sit abandoned but teasingly accessible by a short leap. Intricate murals assembled by dead craftsmen are caked with decades of brake dust and grime. Waiting on the platform you’re made to feel like a shuffling Walking Dead style zombie, begging for a protagonist to burst through a decaying grate and end your long period of brainless waiting. The service runs long headways, the J remains notoriously under-utilized, and its cars may be the single largest source of second-hand smoke left in New York. This entire arrangement is (I counted) one hundred thirty seven steps from the gates of City Hall. That such an emblem of rot sits directly below the seat of city government is at least a little poetic. I do not wish this piece of infrastructure on anyone.

Adding insult to injury, renovation and expansion of this pre-war relic is up in the air following Gov. Hochul’s decision to upend the MTA’s Congestion Pricing scheme. The paint on the ceiling is new, the bones of the system and station are not.

When I venture into a public place, especially infrastructure meant for getting around, I’m pleasantly surprised to leave having felt something, even when that something is seething resentment. Private projects, it seems, have more latitude in explicitly trying to leave an impact on their occupants. Whether this is because that impact can be packaged and sold (any observation deck on Manhattan), or because private projects aren’t subject to the same cost scrutiny (would the Atlas statue be installed at Rockefeller Center if the City built it?) is up for discussion. As we creep closer to the zero hour - that in which our mobility infrastructure needs more than a facelift or a nose job - I hope that the experiences of the users are really considered by the disparate planning commissions and committees and private operators made responsible for the next age of infrastructure development. When they aren’t, we get Robert Moses’ utilitarian vision. When they are, we may yet again luck into something to be proud of - another generation of secular cathedrals. Something to be proud of.

The News

New York’s Congestion Pricing (Finally) Starts January 5th: So if you’re a fan of sitting in tunnel traffic, get your Manhattan joyrides done before they cost $9 more. Eight months late and lower than the initially-promised $15, the tolls will fund in no particular order new trains, equipment upgrades, and accessibility projects (read: more elevators) across the Subway system.

Nashville Levied a Sales Tax to fund Infrastructure: Initiatives even tangentially related to the idea of getting around without a car outran Democrats and Republicans in red, blue and purple states this year. In Nashville, this means half a penny per dollar buys bus service and walking/biking infrastructure upgrades. An obviously under-reported story playing second fiddle to the big news in November, municipalities and states seem to be coming around to the fact that public services cost money to operate, and are additive to regional economies and the lives of those who use them.

The Northeast Corridor still hangs on by a thread: While not as sexy as American Airlines’ hour long Christmas technical meltdown, the critical Northeast Corridor’s hundred-year-old equipment fared poorly in cold windy arctic blast conditions earlier this week leaving thousands of holiday travelers stranded and confused. You’ll be happy to know that the NEC, which serves three quarters of a million people a day, is powered by a single wire that just hangs around waiting to snap. Maybe the incoming Department of Government Efficiency can find a way to turn 50 years of studies about upgrades into wire 2.0, and if not, a Tesla Tunnel between New York and Boston would be a fine consolation prize.

This concludes Stand Clear by Anonymous Transit Expert.

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• Don’t ever say writing freelance for a Conde Nast publication can’t change your life. New York-based writer and performer

  Annie Hamilton
  recently wrote a story for GQ about partying downtown — and how it didn’t come close to her rowdy youth uptown. According to her Twitter, a reader flew her around the world for Christmas, which ended in her taking NyQuil at LAX. I would like more than three Tweets on this situation.

• Champagne ice cream cocktail.

• The queen of self-improvement, Grace Clarke, published her 2025 personal planning template (it’s different than last year!). I texted Grace this morning to find out who she suggests this template for:

  “This is for people who want something different but aren’t sure what ‘it’ is, much less how to make it happen. If you just want a process to follow, if you’re exhausted but know you want a change, this is for you. (Three years into making this, I’ve heard from people at Goldman Sachs, Lego, Substack, Sequoia, the BGRs of the world, freelancers, a gardener. Safe to say this is the planner for people who take their happiness and fulfillment seriously). And for my skeptics: a Stanford psychologist consulted on this version. It’s the best one yet.”

  If any of you start filling it out, tell us!

• Jeff Bezos Tweeted for the first time in months to correct rumors that he’d be getting married later this year. However, I was at Chez Margaux last weekend and I did see Lauren Sanchez wearing all white.

• It’s been a rough year for diamond sales. De Beers Group has amassed its biggest stockpile of diamonds since the 2008 financial crisis, which partially explains why they asked to advertise on Feed Me earlier this year (I didn’t work with them) and are pushing ads on a few other newsletters. According to FT, Chinese demand has slumped as competition from lab-grown alternatives has increased.

• Kim Kardashian’s SKKY ventures announced some role changes this week. In a recent securities filing, they disclosed that they only secured a few more million dollars for its flagship fund, and that, “Kim Kardashian is no longer listed as an executive officer. Kardashian's mother, Kris Jenner, previously was listed on the website as a senior advisor, but has since been removed entirely.” Doesn’t seem like they’ve done anything besides invest in hot sauce brand, Truff.

• Social wellness club (club is a stretch I think) Remedy Place opened their second location in New York on Canal. The homepage positions the sauna, ice bath, and lymphatic drainage services as an alternative to a traditional date night. “Whether it’s a date night in the sauna, substituting happy hour with an ice bath on the rocks, or enjoying the contrast suite designed for parties of six, our newest club offers more ways to connect with your network and reach your goals.” First date getting IV drips together is kind of hot.

• I know some of you saw Babygirl this week, and I’m going to need you to share your thoughts in the comments.