Memories

For whatever peculiar reason, I was remembering the Hudson Tubes (the old name for the PATH trains onaccountabecause the tunnels beneath the Hudson were cylindrical sections of cast iron bolted together.  Still are, come to think of it) this morning.  Mostly I was envisioning the time after the demolition of Hudson Terminal and the surrounding neighborhood (which I learned later had been known as Radio Row) and the excavation of what became known as "the bathtub" (the slurry wall) at World Trade Center (designed to keep at bay all the little underground streams running through the area), when the tunnels in and out of the old Hudson Terminal were visible, looking something like a pair of snakes that had swallowed rods.  

(Passengers used the platforms at Hudson Terminal until the World Trade Center station was built, about two stories deeper and a block closer to the river, with the approach angle of the track softened so that the mighty whine of trains entering Hudson Terminal became the muted howls of trains entering World Trade Center.)

I only saw Hudson Terminal at street level from outside once, when my friend C. and her mother dropped me off there.  It was past twilight, so all I saw was a dark building.  Mostly I took subways to get there, and the subways had underground connections to the old station (Cortlandt Street BMT had several arches leading to the HT concourse, which had to be bricked up when it closed).

ETA:  More information with pictures (I have changed some of the text above to reflect this).