9/11
Following the 9/11 attacks, New York’s subway shut down for the first time since the 1977 blackout. At 10:20 p.m. on September 11, 2011, subway service was suspended, and many trains in Lower Manhattan lost power and had to be evacuated through the tunnels. Newsday noted that “the subway stations under lower Manhattan were eerily quiet shortly after noon. Soot filtered down to the stations near the World Trade Center, covering the floors, the phones, the MetroCard vending machines. Token booths were empty.” Surprisingly, many subway lines were opened around two or three hours after the attacks, and three of the four damaged subways reopened within a year. There were no reported casualties on the subway on 9/11. In 2018, the Cortlandt Street subway station, which was heavily damaged during 9/11, was finally re-opened.