 The portion of the mall inside theOculus | |
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| Coordinates | 40°42′41″N74°00′43″W / 40.71139°N 74.01194°W /40.71139; -74.01194 |
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| Address | 185Greenwich Street,Manhattan,New York, U.S. |
| Opening date | August 16, 2016; 8 years ago (August 16, 2016) |
| Management | Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield |
| Owner | Port Authority of New York and New Jersey |
| Architect | Santiago Calatrava |
| No. of stores and services | 116 |
| Total retail floor area | 365,000 square feet (33,900 m2) |
| No. of floors | 2 |
| Public transit access |   New York City Subway: atWTC Cortlandt atWorld Trade Center   atCortlandt Street PATH:NWK-WTCHOB-WTC atWorld Trade Center  New York City Bus:M55 |
| Website | |
| World Trade Center |
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| Towers |
| Other elements |
| Artwork |
| History |
Westfield World Trade Center[1] is ashopping mall at theWorld Trade Center complex inManhattan,New York, which is operated and managed byUnibail-Rodamco-Westfield. The mall opened on August 16, 2016, as the largest shopping complex in Manhattan, with 125 retail spaces. It replacedThe Mall at the World Trade Center, the underground shopping mall under the originalWorld Trade Center, which was destroyed during theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.
.svg)
.jpg) View of the main entrance to The Mall at the World Trade Center (WTC 4) from Liberty Street in August 2001 | |
| Opening date | 1975; 50 years ago (1975) |
|---|---|
| Closing date | September 11, 2001; 23 years ago (2001-09-11) |
| Owner | Port Authority of New York and New Jersey |
| No. of stores and services | ~80 |
| No. of floors | 2 (Plaza and Concourse level) |
| Website | panynj.gov/wtcmall panynj.gov/wtc/wtcsfram.HTM |
The Mall at the World Trade Center was an indoor undergroundshopping mall that was located in theconcourse area of the originalWorld Trade Center complex which was destroyed during theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.
Most of the mall was located underneath4 and5 World Trade Center, as well as under theAustin J. Tobin Plaza. Completed in 1975, it was the largest shopping mall inNew York City, and was managed by theWestfield Group. The main entrance was located on the south side of4 World Trade Center facingLiberty Street with escalators going down into the concourse. The other entrance was located on the east side of 5 World Trade Center facingChurch Street. The mall was also accessible from the lobbies of the Twin Towers, and it served as the point of access or transfer to theChambers Street–World Trade Center subway station on theA, C, and E trains.PATH trains intersected in the basement levels, which were located under the mall.
The mall included eateries as well as approximately 80 stores, includingBorders,Banana Republic,Coach,The Children's Place,Tourneau,J. Crew,Cole Haan,Sephora,Duane Reade,Gap,Sam Goody,Victoria's Secret and theWarner Bros. Studio Store.[2] Thousands of people traveled through the mall daily.
On April 26, 2001, thePort Authority of New York & New Jersey agreed to lease the mall to theWestfield Group on a 99-year agreement.[3][4] On July 24, 2001, the deal was accepted.[5] After the purchase, Westfield was planning a massive renovation and expansion of the mall, and was going to rename itWestfield Shoppingtown World Trade Center in 2002.
A commonly reported story of eyewitnesses inside the mall at 8:46 a.m.EDT, whenAmerican Airlines Flight 11 struck theNorth Tower, is of fireballs being fed by flamingjet fuel shooting down the elevator shafts and bursting out of the elevators inside the lobby, with many of the fireballs reaching as far as the mall itself.
As stated in the9/11 Commission Report:
ThePort Authority's on-site commanding police officer was standing in theconcourse when a fireball exploded out of theNorth Tower lobby, causing him to dive for cover.[6]
Survivor Allison Summers described the conditions in the mall right after the terrorist attack:
I had almost reached the[Cortlandt Street] Uptown 1 and 9 station when there was an enormous explosion. The building shook. I heard people say, 'Oh, no.' Some, not many, were screaming. ... I looked ahead pastBanana Republic, pastCitibank to the plaza outside. At that moment, there was a terrifying tidal wave of smoke filling the doorway. It began to shoot forward. The smoke had this enormous momentum that started to come towards us, as if it had a will of its own. We ran. We ran together past theCoach store. We ran to get out of the path of this enormous wave of smoke. It was like we were being chased. All the people on the concourse ran. We turned right, heading toward thePATH trains. As we ran, shop assistants were calling in doorways, 'What happened? What happened?' But we were running so fast we couldn't answer them and they ran with us. Some people were crying; some people were screaming. We moved as one body. No one pushed and no one shoved. We all had the same intention: to get out of the building.[7]
Shortly after the first impact,water began spraying into the mall from broken pipes or activatedsprinkler systems. As Erik Ronningen describes:
I drag my body down through the decimated main lobby [of the North Tower], through a waterfall from the Mall ceiling, and wade the darkened Mall corridor through 75 yards [69 m] of ankle-deep water to Tower Two."[8]
The mall itself played an important role during the attacks because the people who were evacuating the Twin Towers could not exit outside onto the plaza because of falling debris, so they traveled through the mall, and exited through either 4 or 5 World Trade Center.
The mall was heavily damaged by the collapse of the two towers and was ultimately demolished following the September 11 attacks.
The Oculus has roughly 365,000 square feet (33,900 m2) of retail space. Although the new mall is only spread over roughly one-half of the original mall's footprint (due to the new space required for the below-groundNational September 11 Memorial & Museum), the mall is double-level, whereas the original mall was a single level.3 and4 World Trade Center currently house three and four aboveground levels, respectively.2 World Trade Center is planned to contain three additional levels. TheWorld Trade Center station'shead house, the Oculus, also houses a large amount of retail space.[9]
According to developerLarry Silverstein, whose firmSilverstein Properties was replaced byWestfield Corporation as the developer:
The design we have developed with thePort Authority calls for not only rebuilding the retail space that was lost on9/11, but going above and beyond what was there before. We want to create a real destination for visitors and shoppers, a center that will share many of the attributes of thecity's great retail hubs.[9]
Construction on theOne World Trade Center portion of the mall began in 2007. In February 2012,Westfield Corporation entered an agreement with the Port Authority, which owns the rest of theWorld Trade Center site, to jointly own and manage the mall. At the same time, Westfield began marketing space in the mall and opened a leasing office in7 World Trade Center.[10] In December 2013, the Port Authority sold its remaining stake in the retail development to Westfield.[11] This also brings retail at the World Trade Center to Westfield's complete control. The mall was 80% leased as of June 2014[update].[12] The mall's 125 retail spaces were fully leased by October 2015.[13][14]
The mall opened on August 16, 2016, with a concert headlined byJohn Legend andLeslie Odom Jr.,[15][16] the opening of a food court[17] and stores such asPandora[18] andApple.[16] In total, there were about 60 stores in the mall when it opened.[16] By 2017, there were 82 stores within the mall, although much of the mall's space had not been leased. Some tenants were also moving out, and the Port Authority was also rebuilding nine storefronts in front of the PATH station's entrance.[19] These nine storefronts, which were considered prime retail space, were not available because that location had been the site of the former entrance to the temporary PATH station.[20]
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‡ Managed with no ownership interest. World Trade Center space is owned by thePort Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Fulton Center space is owned by theMetropolitan Transportation Authority. | ||||||