By Philip Newman
Thousands of Queens E train riders whose destination is the end of the line at the former World Trade Center can once again travel as they did before the Sept. 11 attack closed the station but with some changes.
The Chambers/World Trade Center subway station at the northeast edge of Ground Zero reopened Monday for the first time since the terrorist assault on the Twin Towers.
The station escaped serious damage but was shut down in part to avoid bringing thousands of commuters into an area adjacent to the massive, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week ongoing project to clear a mountain of rubble from the World Trade Center site.
Reopening the station means straphangers no longer need to end their trip at Canal Street, where E trains had terminated their run since Sept. 11, and then transfer to the C or A lines to complete their trips.
Access to the station is still closed at two points, Vesey Street and the passageway to the vast concourse of shops and restaurants below the site of the World Trade Center.
At the south end of the blocks-long station, a large sign proclaims: WTC Newsstand – Novelties. The closed newsstand is now behind metal shutters. The row of turnstiles leading into the station from the retail arcade of the World Trade Center is idle and the wide access through which thousands of people once moved to and from the subway is closed off by a floor-to-ceiling wall of drywall material.
Transit officials said reopening the station would help ease congestion at stations further uptown on the E line.
