On Thursday, March 4th, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in Lower Manhattan officially opened to the public. The hub replaces the PATH train station that was destroyed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which — if you’ll recall — was rather a long time ago. Indeed, over 12 years in the making, the new train station is symbol of both governmental waste and architectural excess. Its centerpiece is the Oculus, a mind-boggling glass-and-steel structure designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to look like a dove in flight, but it actually more closely resembles a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the sands of Lower Manhattan.
Critics have blasted the hub for its massive cost overruns ($4 billion in public money) and…