Title: West Street History
(Picture 1)
Subtitle: West Street north from Cedar Street
Text: By 1900, West Street had become a broad thoroughfare clogged with vehicles, as much parked awaiting loading as in transit. Many piers hosted railroads that ferried passengers and freight to and from their terminals in New Jersey. The elevated footbridge kept pedestrians safe from the chaotic traffic below.
(Picture 2)
Subtitle: South from Cortlandt Street, c. 1920
Text: West Street south from Cortlandt Street around 1920 shows the piers of the working waterfront as a solid barrier between the city and the river. Ocean liners steam into port and the relatively few automobiles park mid-street where an elevated highway would within a decade be constructed to accommodate the explosion of traffic.
(Picture 3)
Subtitle: Aerial View, Dey St. to Park Place, 1966
Text: The great Art Deco skyscraper, the Barclay-Vesey Building, headquarters of New York Telephone, now Verizon, dominated West Street prior to the Twin Towers. The landmark was damaged on 9/11, but has been restored. All of the low-rise buildings to the left were demolished in the 1960s for the Trade Center project.
(Picture 4)
Subtitle: Urban Renewal, 1970
Text: The north tower of the World Trade Center has risen above the 34-story Barclay-Vesey Building. To the north, the Washington Market Urban Renewal area has cleared the old produce warehouses and most other structures in a vast swath, two blocks deep. Once bustling wharves are nearly empty.
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