NYC's Grand Central Terminal suffers power outage, MTA says
Power has been fully restored at Grand Central Terminal in New York City after an outage left commuters in the dark Thursday night.
The MTA said just before 8:30 p.m., the terminal "experienced a drop in voltage to the feeder network that resulted in lights going out in portions of the facility."
Videos show the station plunged in darkness with people using flashlights and cellphone lights to navigate.
Power was restored to the upper level of the terminal at 8:53 p.m. and the lower level at 9:17 p.m., the MTA said.
Con Edison is working with the MTA to investigate the cause of the outage.
Transit not affected by Grand Central outage, MTA says
The outage did not impact subways, Metro-North Railroad or Long Island Rail Road, officials said, and operations at Grand Central Madison were also unaffected.
No one was injured during the incident, according to the MTA, but commuters still said it was nerve-wracking.
"It was scary," Long Island resident Gabi Thompson said.
"I tried to play dumb like I was not scared, but I was terrified on the inside," commuter Malcolm Summers said.
"The lights went out, and I didn't know what was going on," commuter Sophie Levitt said. "I'm a New Yorker, born and raised, and ... I've never seen this before in Grand Central."
"The MTA still hasn't gotten their act together. You would think they would have generators," a commuter named Dave said.
Five Metro-North employees were briefly trapped in elevators, but the MTA said they were able to get out safely once the doors were opened and emergency generators activated.
The last blackout at Grand Central was back in December 2023, when an issue with a Con Edison substation caused outages across the city. Elevators at Grand Central were out of service for about three hours during that incident.