World Trade Center Subway Station Destroyed on 9/11 Re-Opens 17 Years Later

The New York City subway station destroyed by terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, re-opened on Saturday for the first time in 17 years.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials unveiled the renovated Cortlandt Street station, which ran underneath the World Trade Center, and named the re-opened stop on the No. 1 line “WTC Cortlandt” to commemorate the site where thousands lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

The new WTC Cortlandt station on the 1 line is now open to the public. It’s fully accessible, has fewer columns for easier customer flow, and is also air-tempered to keep you cooler on hot days. pic.twitter.com/A5DaiBb06w

— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) September 8, 2018

It took years for the station to re-open because the Port Authority decided to keep the station closed while reconstructing the area around the World Trade Center complex, the New York Post reported.

The renovated station cost $181.8 million and features a mosaic on the station’s walls displaying the text from the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

With the re-opening of WTC Cortlandt St. (1) station, #MTAArts proudly presents “CHORUS” by artist #AnnHamilton. The marble mosaic marks the historic site w/text from the US Declaration of Independence & the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://t.co/FhGx5QQn6d pic.twitter.com/IUWcPnfnjT

— MTA Arts & Design (@MTAArtsDesign) September 8, 2018

“It’s long overdue,” Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University, told the New York Times. “It was a major challenge to rebuild the subway at the same time you’re rebuilding the site above it.”

Next stop, WTC Cortlandt: Last major piece in NYC's quest to rebuild what was lost finally opens as a "rare piece of good news at a time when the subway is in crisis" https://t.co/UxL5tiuNI2 via @emmagf @winnhu

— David W. Chen (@davidwchen) September 9, 2018

Construction workers had to completely renovate the ceiling after pieces from the World Trade Center came crashing down, and they had to rebuild 1,200 feet of track on both sides of the station.