From President Donald Trump taking office to the power of the #MeToo movement, 2017 was certainly something, both nationally and locally. To the latter, let’s take a brief look back at the year that was in New York City.
Delays, derailments and disasters
The Second Avenue subway opened in January after being proposed a century earlier, and it was pretty much all downhill the rest of the year for city straphangers.
We saw derailments at major hubs Atlantic Avenue and Penn Station, the latter of which had four alone. And speaking of Penn Station, let’s not forget the two-month “summer of hell” track closures so Amtrak could make repairs.
Plus there were all those pesky signal issue delays, that time an F train was stranded underground in Manhattan in darkness and sweltering heat for 45 minutes during rush hour and countless other problems that saw the MTA create a Subway Action Plan for improvements.
Hurricane helpers
New Yorkers often get a bad rap, but when it comes to helping those in need, we roll up our sleeves or open our wallets, and the devastatingly destructive 2017 hurricane season was no different.
New York sent personnel and equipment to Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria made landfall in August and September. The city also opened the Hurricane Service Center to help residents relocating from those areas and took in shelter animals as well.
The year of women
In a year women faced cuts in birth control access, Trump’s boy’s club in Washington and continued rampant sexism, they, nevertheless, persisted to be empowered by themselves and the movements cited below to make their voices heard, maybe more than ever before.
Power in protests
Since the 2016 election, Americans took to the streets to protest, as well as support, Trump’s presidency, but the day after his inauguration, women brought the noise with the Women’s March on Washington, the biggest single-day protest in U.S. history. Tens of thousands attended the New York march, which really kicked off the year in protest, from frequent rallies held outside Trump Tower to the March for Science and the #MeToo rally earlier this month that united sexual assault victims.
Terror tensions
In the span of 41 days, New York City experienced two terror attacks, including its deadliest one since 9/11 when Sayfullo Saipov drove a rented truck down a Lower Manhattan bike path on Halloween morning, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others.
On Dec. 11, Akayed Ulla detonated a homemade improvised explosive device in an underground pedestrian passageway between Times Square and Port Authority, seriously injuring himself and three others.
Mayoral election
Though Mayor Bill de Blasio easily won another four years in office in November, defeating Republican Nicole Malliotakis and independent Bo Dietl in the general election, it was still a historic win as he ended a 32-year-drought for Democrats. The last Democrat to be re-elected mayor was Ed Koch in 1985.
2017’s Top 10 Google searches in NYC
1. Hurricane Irma
2. New York Yankees
3. Bitcoin price
4. Tom Petty
5. iPhone 8
6. Aaron Hernandez
7. Super Bowl
8. Game of Thrones
9. iPhoneX
10. Matt Lauer
