New York City reopens subway station destroyed in 9/11 terror attack

New York City's Cortlandt Street subway station was destroyed in the 9/11 terror attack 17 years ago. (New York Transit Authority)

A New York City subway station has finally reopened, 17 years after being shuttered when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in the 9/11 terror attack.

The Cortlandt Street station on the No. 1 line ran under the World Trade Center.

The new stop, which was opened Saturday, will now be known as WTC Cortlandt in honor of the site, according to reports.

The station took so long to reopen because the Port Authority kept it shuttered while it was busy working on the rest of the reconstruction of the World Trade Center complex, the New York Post reported.

The station cost $181.8 million and features a mosaic by artist Ann Hamilton including text from the 1776 Declaration of Independence, The New York Times reported.

New York City spent $181.8 million to reopen the Cortlandt Street subway station under the World Trade Center. (MTA)

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

Benjamin Kabak, a transit advocate who runs a popular website about the subway, told the paper it was good the project was finished, even if it took way too long.

“It’s not exactly one of their crowning achievements,” Kabak said, referring to the MTA. “They had a lot of back and forth with the Port Authority.”

The ceiling had to be completely renovated after parts of the World Trade Centerfell through it, and 1,200 feet of track had to be rebuilt on either side of the station, WCBS-TV reported.

“It will allow people to get on, and they can get to the Upper West Side, they can connect to the number two and number three to take the express to the Upper West Side – it a level of connectivity,” New York Transit Authority Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber told the station.