I wasn’t expecting the view.

The PATH car emerged from under the Hudson River and pulled right into the pit of Ground Zero. Through the car’s windows I could see the sweep of it all before me as the car rolled along — the rough retaining wall, the cross-section of the former parking garage, the wide ramp that leads down into the pit. Stadium lights illuminated everything in the early evening darkness. We were in Ground Zero.

“That’s just wrong,” one black girl said to her friend.

The car came to a stop and the doors opened. “World Trade Center, final stop,” the conductor said. I stepped out of the car and onto the platform. It all seemed so familiar again. I felt like I’d just been here yesterday. But the last time I’d been here was on the evening of September 10, 2001, right after buying a new T-shirt at the Gap in the World Trade Center concourse. Back when we lived in a different world.

Now I ascended the same staircase I used to ascend — or if it wasn’t the same, then it was at least in the same place. Here was a better view of Ground Zero, although it was covered by a mesh scrim. I walked through the turnstile, and there was a Hudson News stand, in the same place where the old one used to be.

And then those escalators.

That tall, tall bank of escalators. I used to run down those steps, two at a time, late at night, hoping to catch the next train home.

I walked up them now — the very same escalators as before. Only when I got to the top, there was no concourse. No stores. There was just a big concrete space, the breeze blowing in through the scrims, and a sign pointing to the N/R/W and A/C/E trains.

But I could see where everything used to be. I could see the Warner Brothers Store, with its big statues of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I could see J. Crew, and the HSBC branch, and the cell phone kiosk, and the Gap, and Duane Reade. I could see them. But they weren’t really there. Ghosts, all of them. I felt like I was standing inside a matrix, inside a blueprint. This wasn’t real.

I walked up the final set of stairs and out onto Church Street. And there, a block away, was the subway station for the A, C, 2, 3, 4, 5, J, M, and Z trains. Blue, red, green, and brown circles. A beautiful rainbow of subway connections.

A seven-minute ride across the Hudson and I can once again hop onto almost any subway line I need. I can easily go anywhere in the city again.

It’s just like it was before.

Well, no, it can’t be just like it was before. That will never be possible.

But it’s as back as it can be.