Cortlandt Street subway station reopened November 25, 2009

The Cortlandt Street R/W station was met with a welcome return to service today in Lower Manhattan. The first train to stop at the station since August 2005 today drew downtown leaders to the northbound platform, joining the pre-Thanksgiving rush.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Jay Walder announced the Cortlandt station’s reopening on the plaza outside the Millennium Hotel and Centruy 21.

The station was closed four years ago so crews could excavate below it, forming the underground passage to link the Fulton Transit Center to the World Trade Center. That work is now complete with only the tunnel’s finishing work left, allowing the MTA to restore uptown-only service. The renovated northbound platform, running beneath Church Street, now has wider entrances and is itself wider in one section.

Meanwhile, the downtown platform will remain closed while WTC construction continues outside its western wall. The southbound reopening is currently slated for September 2011, timed with the opening of the National 9/11 Memorial.

Speaking outside the Dey Street entrance, Walder commended his team and thanked local officials and community leaders -- among them State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, State Senator Daniel Squadron, the MTA’s Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu, and Community Board leader Catherine McVay-Hughes.

“The MTA has played a key role in the revival of downtown and we’re excited to provide customers an improved station just in time for the holidays,” said Walder.

Opened first in 1918, Cortlandt station was rebuilt after being badly damaged on September 11, 2001. It reopened to the public in fall 2002, then closed again in summer 2005. The station served an average of 15,000 customers a day when it was last open. The northbound platform $7.25 million rehabilitation was funded entirely by the federal government.

Slated for full completion in 2014, several new components the Fulton Transit Center complex will reopen as they are done, including new entrances, renovated infrastructure, and pedestrian concourses.

“The opening of the northbound platform signifies an important milestone towards the completion of the Transit Center,” said Horodniceanu. “We will continue this great momentum.”

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