Guest editorial: World Trade Center

The station will formally open on Nov. 23, just over two years since the Sept. 11 attack, and the first train will be the same eight cars that were the last train out, rescuing passengers trapped on the platform and departing just before the collapse of the south tower.

The $323 million station is in the "bathtub," the huge retaining wall that keeps water out of the excavation and whose strength kept the disaster from being worse than it was. Screens will partially obscure the site of the missing buildings, but the curious would see only a vast construction yard.

At 50,000 passengers a day, the reopened station will restore life and foot traffic to the onetime social and commercial center; it should be that again. The station is only a first step, a $323 million first step; others will follow quickly.

On Nov. 17, the eight finalist designs for a memorial to the victims, whose numbers were recently revised downward to 2,752, will go on display.

And by Dec. 15, the architects are to agree on a final design for a skyscraper to be erected on the site. That design should be big, bold and brash; it should be New York.