Closings and cancellations following the September 11, 2001 attacks

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Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
Timeline
Background history
Planning
September 11, 2001
Rest of September
October
Aftermath
Victims
Survivors
Foreign casualties
Hijacked airliners
American Airlines Flight 11
United Airlines Flight 175
American Airlines Flight 77
United Airlines Flight 93
Sites of destruction
World Trade Center
The Pentagon
Shanksville
Effects
World political effects
World economic effects
Detentions
Airport security
Closings and cancellations
Audiovisual entertainment
Response
Government response
Rescue and recovery effort
Financial assistance
Memorials and services
Perpetrators
Responsibility
Organizers
Miscellaneous
Communication
Tower collapse
Slogans and terms
Conspiracy theories
Opportunists
Inquiries
U.S. Congressional Inquiry
9/11 Commission

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, several institutions responded with closures, cancellations, and postponements. Some of the most significant are listed here. They were closed primarily because of fears that they may be attacked. At some places, streets leading up to the institutions were also closed. When they reopened, they opened with heightened security. Many states declared a state of emergency.

Contents 1 Closings 2 Evacuations 3 Cancellations 4 Postponements 5 Travel effects

Closings

(taken to mean unusual closures on September 11, for any reason)

• The stock exchanges on Wall Street. Wall Street never opened its stock markets on September 11, even as CNN continued to show futures numbers early in the day. As Wall Street itself was covered in debris from the World Trade Center and due to infrastructure damage, it remained closed until Monday, September 17 - four normally open days, 6 including Saturday and Sunday.
• The Washington Monument
• The Statue of Liberty
• The Virginia State Capitol
• Other US landmarks, including the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.
• All federal buildings in Washington, D.C., including the White House. Approximately one million federal workers were sent home across the country.
• NASA
• The Supreme Court of the United States
• Resorts and vacation spots
  • Disneyland (only for September 11)
  • Walt Disney World (only for September 11)
  • Universal Studios Florida
  • SeaWorld
  • All TV and Movie Studios in Hollywood
• Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
• All federal and state buildings in the state of Massachusetts
• Many schools across the country.
  • The schools that closed took no chances after the attacks and dismissed their students early, understanding the fact that children were watching the television coverage of the attacks and that they had been victims of an act of terrorist violence before--the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Evacuations

(taken to mean evacuation in light of perceived threat of attack)

• the United Nations headquarters in New York City
• the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois
• several skyscrapers in downtown Houston
• the Transamerica building in San Francisco
• the Renaissance Center in Detroit
• parts of Washington, D.C., and New York City
• international flights bound for the USA were diverted to Canada (also known as Operation Yellow Ribbon)
• in London, Canary Wharf tower and the Stock Exchange Tower
• the Empire State Building in New York was evacuated a couple of times on September 11 and after due to false reports of potential threats.
• the HSBC Tower in Buffalo, New York
• the Bank of America and Wachovia headquarters buildings in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Tribune Studios was evacuated when there were no shows being taped.

Cancellations

In an atmosphere reminiscent of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and for the first time since then, everyday life in the United States came to a standstill in the days after the September 11 attacks. There was a widespread perception shortly after the attacks that recreational events and sports were not appropriate after the death and destruction seen in Washington, D.C. and New York City, out of respect for the dead and wounded. For this reason, as well as for reasons of perceived threat associated with large gatherings, events were postponed or cancelled. A sampling of cancellations:

• Broadway theater shows (until Thursday evening, September 13, when they resumed with dimmed marquees)
• US sporting events including those on this list
  • Major League Baseball. Games were first postponed for one day, then three, then all games through Sunday the 16th were postponed. The games were tacked on to what would have been the end of the regular season, delaying the post-season and the end of the 2001 World Series to November 4 that year.
  • The National Football League postponed football games on Sunday, September 16 and the Monday night game the night following. Those games — along with the playoffs and Super Bowl XXXVI — were put back at the original end of the regular season.
  • NASCAR postponed the Sunday, September 16 Winston Cup New Hampshire 300 race at New Hampshire International Speedway until November 23, the day after Thanksgiving, which was the next available date for racing.
  • Division I-A college football games to be played Thursday, September 13 and Saturday, September 15 were postponed. This was not an insignificant decision; in 1988, Syracuse University was severely criticized for allowing a basketball game be played hours after 35 of their students were killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Some games were played in early December, others were outright cancelled.
  • The PGA golf tour cancelled the World Golf Championship (the American Express championship in St. Louis, Missouri). This was the first time in five years the PGA cancelled a tournament. This event was not made up, and the purse monies were donated to charities.
• Voting in the city of New York (September 11 was a mayoral primary election day) was halted. Elections in Syracuse, New York and Buffalo, New York were delayed.
• Even months after the attacks, events were still impacted, with Blockbuster Entertainment cancelling its spring 2002 awards show. Another event still impacted by the attacks were the 2003 Grammy Awards, which would be held at Madison Square Garden instead of Staples Center.
• Cartoon Network cancelled Mobile Suit Gundam after the attack and took an episode of Cowboy Bebop that dealt with terrorist bombings ("Cowboy Funk") out of the Adult Swim lineup for nearly a year afterwards.

Postponements

• The 2001 Emmy Awards. Originally scheduled for September 16 2001, the glamorous awards show was rescheduled twice (among rumors of cancelling the show entirely) before finally taking place on November 4, with a somewhat somber atmosphere.
• The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, a meeting of the heads of government of the nations of the Commonwealth of Nations to be held in Brisbane, Australia, was postponed. The organisers of the meeting claimed the cancellation was not so much a fear of terrorist attack on the meeting itself, but a desire by many Commonwealth leaders to stay at home in case of any further crisis-making world events (such as the commencement of overt military action in Afghanistan or elsewhere).
• Even after normal television programming resumed after nearly a full week of news coverage following the attack, some daily talk shows such as The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien The Daily Show and Late Show with David Letterman took additional time before beginning to broadcast new installments, with Letterman in particular stating that he wasn't sure he wanted to continue to do the show. All the shows did, eventually, return, though their first episodes back were somber affairs without exception.
• The fall season premieres of a number of American TV series were delayed.
• The 2001 Ryder Cup of golf, held at The Belfry in England, was postponed a whole year.
• World Wrestling Entertainment postponed a SmackDown! Television Taping on September 11, and instead aired the show live on September 13. The show was dedicated to the victims of the attacks with straight-forward wrestling matches interspliced with wrestler's thoughts on the events.

Travel effects

For at least a full day after the attacks, bridges and tunnels to the island of Manhattan were closed to non-emergency vehicle traffic in both directions. Among other things, this interrupted scheduled deliveries of food and other perishables, leading to shortages in restaurants.

All civilian airplane traffic in the United States was grounded until Thursday, September 13 2001. United Airlines cancelled all flights worldwide temporarily. First stranded planes were allowed to go to their intended destinations; then limited service resumed. All incoming international flights were diverted to Canada in Operation Yellow Ribbon. On Thursday night the New York area airports (JFK, La Guardia, Newark) were closed again, and were reopened Friday morning. The only traffic from La Guardia during the closure was a single C9C government VIP jet, departing at approximately 5:15PM on the 12th.

Beginning 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 was lasting from 5:30 AM to noon), caused largely by the increased security measures put in place.

Service on the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line, a major subway line in New York City was crippled, as it ran directly under the World Trade Center.