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Chinatown Bus Terminal

Chinatown’s Fung Wah bus is famously one of the cheapest ways to get to Boston, costing only only $15 to get to New York’s most northerly suburb. The preferred mode of transport between home and university for many a student and an economical mode of transport for the traveller-in-the-know, the chief deficiency of the ‘China bus’ as it is known is that in New York it just lets you off on a random street corner at the eponymous end of the Manhattan Bridge. Wendan Tang, a graduate student at Notre Dame’s School of Architecture (arguably the best in the country), produces his solution to the problem with a hypothetical design for a bus terminal in Chinatown, nudged between the bland modern Confucius Plaza and the beautiful classical entrance collonade and arch of the Manhattan Bridge.


The apex of the triangular site is the cylindrical tower entrance topped by a moderate dome.

The ground floor entrance proceeds towards a main concourse flanked by retail space which afterwards leads out towards the actual buses. There’s also an auditorium on this floor.

The upper floor contains room for a café and restaurant as well as office space.

An overall plan, including the curvaceous collonade and arched portal of the Manhattan Bridge.

A side elevation of the bus terminal.

The main concourse within the building.

An aerial perspective reveals what I consider to be the chief flaw of the plan. Instead of leaving the Manhattan Bridge portal as a free-standing structure, the bus terminal encumbers one flank while leaving the other open, resulting in an unwelcome feeling of unbalance. It would be far better to tear down the uninspiring Confucius Plaza tower, and replace it with a new, lower tower (or towers), with a bus terminal and retail space at the base.

Above, a view from directly above. Below, an old photograph of the Manhattan Bridge portal. A double once existed on the Brooklyn side but was demolished to make way for another access ramp in the latter half of the 20th century. Were I to redevelop the vicinity, I think I might adapt it a bit to suit Chinatown by sticking a statue of Confucius atop the arch, perhaps flanked by Sun Yat-Sen (a Christian, after all) and Matteo Ricci. But then again, perhaps not. I have other fantastic plans for the area, which I’ll divulge when I get around to writing about New York’s Old Police Headquarters.

All images bar the last are from the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture.

Published at 11:35 am on Thursday 13 April 2006. Categories: Architecture New York.
Comments

Useful info

— China bus 26 Apr 2006 4:53 am
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