The 1 line in the World Trade Center vicinity (apologies if I wasn’t clear the first time) was destroyed. Not damaged, but destroyed. The current line in the World Trade Center vicinity was built anew in 2002. (Much like the Twin Towers themselves were destroyed in 2001, and the Port Authority is now working on replacing them, not merely on filling a few holes that the planes left.) That’s why it took a year before trains could even pass through the area.

The N/R (now R/W) line in the World Trade Center suffered minor damage. Sufficient repairs were made in under two months to allow trains to pass through. It took a year for the station itself to be made ready for passenger access, either due to further repairs or simply because that’s when the sidewalks opened – I’m not sure which. But nothing on the line was destroyed – not the line itself and not the station.

As for the date – I’m making a general journalistic point. You don’t know for certain what’s going to happen nearly two years from now to the day (nor does the MTA); why are you making it sound like you do? The MTA’s current plan or goal or target is to reopen the southbound platform on September 11, 2011, but things don’t always go according to plan. If construction runs late, it won’t be opening on September 11, 2011. If construction runs early and the platform is ready to be reopened half a year early, I doubt it’s going to be kept unnecessarily closed for half a year to preserve the symbolic date. And politics changes as politicians and leaders change. (A new NYCT president starts today!) You don’t know when the southbound platform will reopen – you only know its currently planned reopening date. But that’s not what your article says.

I feel as though we’re arguing semantics here. The 1 line itself was not completely destroyed. The 1 still ran local from 242nd St to Chambers St. South of Chambers St., it was rerouted over the IRT into Brooklyn because the Cortlandt St. station was destroyed.

As for the precise opening date, the MTA is targeting the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. To miss that date would be politically bad. I’ll stick with my original wording.

And I think your opening paragraphs are still in need of correction.

The 1 line (not just the station) was completely destroyed. The line was shut down south of Chambers. If you lived in New York at the time, you may remember the major service changes on the 1-2-3 that were in effect for an entire year: the 1 was extended to Brooklyn, the 2 ran local, and the 3 terminated at 14th St. It took about a year for the line to be rebuilt so that normal service could be restored. The station is largely irrelevant – the “shell” of a new station was included in the rebuild, but with no street access, there was no point in finishing it. It will be finished when the time comes. (I’m not going to give a precise date!)

Nothing on the R/W (then N/R) line was destroyed. There was some relatively minor damage to the Cortlandt St. station. Within two months of the attacks, service was back up and running through the station. Trains didn’t stop at Cortlandt St. for about a year, although I’m not sure if that’s because the station needed repairs or because it simply needed street access. (I think that’s when the Church St. west sidewalk opened.)

Like with my earlier comment re: Columbus Circle, having never been down there before due to lack of wheelchair access, I don’t really know what the situation on the ground is with Cortlandt and Fulton St asides from what I can glean from this blog and maps.

Happy Thanksgiving

Direct that to the MTA. In the press materials concerning the reopening of the station, they’re the ones saying the precise date.

I fixed the inaccurate informatin in the first few paragraphs.