The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center affected nearby Vesey Street. PATH rail commuters created a crush of pedestrian traffic on Vesey Street each rush hour, in the morning and the afternoon. In May 2014, the Downtown Express dubbed this pedestrian crush the “Vesey Squeezey” (or “Vesey Squeezy”).
   
The finishing of World Trade Center area construction in 2015 led to an easing of the “Vesey Squeezey.”
 
   
Wikipedia: Vesey Street
Vesey Street (/viːziː/ vee-zee) is a street in New York City that runs east-west in Lower Manhattan. The street is named after Rev. William Vesey (1674-1746), the first rector of nearby Trinity Church.
 
Prior to the construction of the World Trade Center it ran as continuous street from Broadway to the Hudson River. As of 2013, it is still a continuous street, but it has four discontinuous segments with mixed uses:
 
. From Broadway to Church Street for motor vehicles and pedestrians.
. From Church Street to West Street for pedestrians only. This portion was widened during construction of the World Trade Center, and separates WTC on the street’s south side from the Verizon Building on the street’s north side.
 
Downtown Express (New York, NY)
No relief for Vesey Squeezey
May 8, 2014 | Filed under: News | Posted by: admin
BY JOSH ROGERS |  The long-awaited opening of the 9/11 Museum this month will bring added benefits like opening up some of the World Trade Center to the public, but one vexing problem — the crush of commuters jammed into narrow Vesey St. — is likely to continue for at least another five months.
 
The daily battle where W.T.C. PATH commuters fight for space with subway riders heading to the PATH, Battery Park City or the Financial District, might best be called the “Vesey Squeezy,” although Mariana De Lorenzo had a different description.
 
“It’s a disaster,” De Lorenzo, 42, a reverse commuter, said as she tried to make her way to the PATH during the morning rush hour this week.
     
Twitter
Peter Haskell
‏@peterhaskell880
Narrow passage nr #WTC #PATH, the “Vesey Squeezy”, widened.  Commuters & residents w/room to move. @wcbs880
Embedded image permalink
7:15 AM - 8 Oct 2014
   
Downtown Express (New York, NY)
Under Cover, Week of Dec. 18, 2014
December 18, 2014 | Filed under: Under Cover | Posted by: admin
COINING OUR 2 CENTS
The Port Authority’s Glenn Guzi last week sounded like he was happy to break free from chains like the ones once needed to rein in pedestrians at the dangerous corner of Vesey and Church St.
 
Guzzi said the years-long problem of commuters and walkers fighting through the narrow space on Vesey is gone now that World Trade Center construction fences have moved back, and 1 World Trade Center is open.
 
This paper began calling the problem the “Vesey Squeezey” in April, but we’re pretty sure the term would not have picked up steam if it hadn’t been immediately embraced by another Vesey veteran, Catherine McVay Hughes, Community Board 1’s chairperson.
 
“Hopefully, Catherine will never ever call it the ‘Vesey Squeezey’ again,” Guzi said at a C.B. 1 meeting Dec.  8.
 
He said there’d be more improvements there. What’s next, Easy Vesey?
     
The Wall Street Journal
Greenwich Street Section Rejoins the Grid
It had been erased by the first World Trade Center complex decades ago
By KEIKO MORRIS
June 24, 2015 6:35 p.m. ET
(...)
When restored on Thursday, Greenwich Street could offer partial relief to the “Vesey Squeezy,” as some still call the morning and evening rush of workers along the already widened Vesey Street on the site’s north end. It will also open up the memorial plaza just north of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, offering a vista of the massive spikes and ribs of the oculus structure capping the Santiago Calatrava-designed transportation hub with an eclectic downtown architecture for its backdrop.
 
USA Today
14 years after 9/11, lower Manhattan is rising as WTC work nears its end
Rick Hampson, USA TODAY 9:24 a.m. EDT September 11, 2015
Fourteen Septembers after terrorists destroyed the nation’s greatest office complex and crippled its fourth-largest business district, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the revival of lower Manhattan continue – one office tenant, subway platform and sidewalk at a time.
 
“This is not the end,’’ Catherine McVay Hughes, chair of the community planning board, says of the recovery. “But it’s the beginning of the end.’
(...)
Some of the city’s worst pedestrian choke points – products of a confluence of construction and office workers, tourists and subway commuters – finally are easing. (The crush at Vesey and Church streets was nicknamed “Vesey Squeezy.”)
 
Twitter
Martha Moore
‏@USATMoore
So long “Vesey Squeezy.” 14 years after 9/11, lower Manhattan rises as WTC work nears end http://usat.ly/1F0woKm  via @rickhampson
3:35 PM - 11 Sep 2015