Closings and cancellations following the September 11 attacks

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Many closings and cancellations followed the

Lower Manhattan

Speaking at a press conference at 11:02 a.m. on the morning of the attacks, Mayor Rudy Giuliani told New Yorkers: "If you are south of Canal Street, get out. Walk slowly and carefully. If you can't figure what else to do, just walk north."^[2] The neighborhood was covered in dust and debris, and electrical failures caused traffic light outages. Emergency vehicles were given priority to respond to ongoing fires, building collapses, and expected mass casualties. Over a million workers and residents south of Canal Street were evacuated, and police stopped pedestrians from entering Lower Manhattan. With subways shut down, vehicle traffic restricted, and tunnels closed, they mainly fled on foot, pouring over bridges and ferries to Brooklyn and New Jersey.^[2]

On September 12, vehicle traffic was banned south of 14th Street, subway stations south of Canal Street were bypassed, and pedestrians were not permitted below Chambers Street. Vehicle traffic below Canal Street was not allowed until October 13.^[2]

The

(WTC) and suffered infrastructure damage, it remained closed until September 17.

Bridges and tunnels

For at least a full day after the attacks,

to Manhattan were closed to non-emergency traffic in both directions. Among other things, this interrupted scheduled deliveries of food and other perishables, leading to shortages in restaurants. From September 27, one-occupant cars were banned from crossing into Lower Manhattan from Midtown on weekday mornings in an effort to relieve some of the crush of traffic in the city (the morning rush hour lasts from 5:30 a.m. to noon), caused largely by the increased security measures and closure of major vehicle and transit crossings.

Mass transit

New York City Subway

Cortlandt Street

IRT station, which was directly below the World Trade Center, after the September 11 attacks

The tracks and stations under the

Immediately after the attacks and more so after the collapses of the Twin Towers, many trains running in Lower Manhattan lost power and had to be evacuated through the tunnels. Some trains had power but the signals did not, requiring special operating procedures to ensure safety.

The

was suspended.

After a few switching delays at 96th Street, service was changed on September 19. The

Service on the

Brighton Beach

via Broadway and Brighton Express. J/Z skip-stop service was suspended at this time. Normal service on all seven trains resumed on October 28.

The only subway line running between Midtown and Lower Manhattan was the

Wall Street

was closed until September 21.

The

World Trade Center

remained closed until January 2002.

There were no reported casualties on the subway or loss of train cars, but a Motor Coach Industries coach bus was destroyed. Another bus was damaged, but was repaired and returned to normal service with a special commemoration livery.

PATH

PATH started evacuating passengers from its Manhattan trains and tracks within minutes of the first plane crash.

was unusable since the switch configuration at the time required all trains to continue to World Trade Center. As a result, PATH ran a modified service: Hoboken-Journal Square, Hoboken-33rd Street, and Newark-33rd Street. Exchange Place reopened with modifications on June 29, 2003; a temporary station replacing World Trade Center opened on November 23.

Ferries

Buses

Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses were temporarily suspended south of Canal Street, and MTA and NJ Transit buses were re-routed to serve passengers arriving in Brooklyn and New Jersey by walking and taking ferries out of Manhattan.

Intercity transit

The

North American airspace

The entire airspaces of the United States and Canada

.

Many incoming international flights were diverted to Atlantic Canada to avoid proximity to potential targets in the United States and large cities in Canada. Some international flights that departed from South America were diverted to Mexico; however, its airspace was not shut down. On Thursday night, the New York area airports (JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark) were closed again and reopened the next morning. The only traffic from LaGuardia during the closure was a single C-9C government VIP jet, departing at approximately 5:15 p.m. on the 12th.

Civilian air traffic was allowed to resume on September 13, with stricter airport security checks, disallowing for example the box cutting knives that were used by the hijackers. (Reinforcement of cockpit doors began in October 2001, and was required for larger airlines by 2003.^[6]) First, stranded planes were allowed to fly to their intended destinations, then limited service resumed. The backlog of delayed passengers took several days to clear.

Due to a translation error, controllers believed

Precautionary building closings and evacuations

Many businesses across the United States closed after the intentional nature of the events became clear, and many national landmarks and financial district skyscrapers were evacuated out of fear of further attacks.

United States

• United Nations Headquarters Building in New York City
• Most skyscrapers in New York City (including the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, which was evacuated several times on September 11 and after due to false reports of potential threats), Chicago (including Sears Tower)^[11] and Philadelphia
• The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
• The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and ferries to both in and out of New York City
• All state capitols and many government buildings surrounding the capitols^{[citation needed]}
• Many landmarks in the United States, including the Mall of America outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Space Needle and Columbia Center in Seattle, Washington
• All federal buildings in Washington, D.C., including the White House, the United States Capitol, the United States Supreme Court Building and Blair House. Across the country, approximately one million federal workers were sent home
• The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles (although all other D.C. government offices remained open)^[12]
• The United States Patent and Trademark Office^[13]
• NASA, including all field centers and the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.^[14]
• Resorts and vacation spots including:
  • Knotts Berry Farm (only on September 11)^[11]
  • Walt Disney World (only on September 11)
  • Universal Studios Florida
  • Universal Studios Hollywood
  • SeaWorld
  • Six Flags
• All television and movie studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
• All
  Westfield shopping centers, malls and shoppingtowns nationwide, as they owned the underground shopping mall at the World Trade Center^{[citation needed}
  ]
• The
  John Hancock Tower and Prudential Tower in Boston^[11]
• Enron Complex and several other skyscrapers in Downtown Houston^[15]
• The Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco
• Several buildings in downtown Cleveland including Terminal Tower, the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building and Key Tower^[16]
• The U.S. Steel Tower in Pittsburgh
• The Renaissance Center in Detroit
• The IDS Tower in Minneapolis
• Bank of America and Wachovia headquarters towers in Uptown Charlotte
• The
  World Trade Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota
• OneAmerica Tower in Indianapolis
• HSBC Tower in Buffalo, New York
• AXA Towers in Syracuse, New York
• Sunset Bronson Studios in Hollywood
• AOL Headquarters in Dulles, Virginia

International

• Toronto: CN Tower, Toronto-Dominion Centre, Toronto Stock Exchange,
• Ottawa: Parliament Hill, Supreme Court of Canada,^[17]
• London: Canary Wharf, Lloyd's building, Stock Exchange Tower, NatWest Tower^[18]
• Kuala Lumpur: Petronas Towers

Government and cultural cancellations and postponements

In an atmosphere reminiscent of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, everyday life in many places around the world came to a standstill in the days after the September 11 attacks. For this reason, as well as for reasons of perceived threat associated with large gatherings, many events were postponed or cancelled. Other events were also cancelled, postponed, or modified:

• Voting on September 11 in the New York City mayoral primary was halted. Elections in Syracuse and Buffalo, New York were also delayed.
• The
  CHOGM was eventually convened at Coolum Beach, Queensland
  .
• The Mexican Independence Parade scheduled for September 16 in Mexico City was delayed one day in a show of compassion; many other independence celebrations were held on the 16th without fireworks.
• Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch canceled its Christmas 2001 issue of A&F Quarterly because the company felt the tone of the publication was not suitable for the mood at that time.^[19]

References