However, effects of the fire continued into 2006 because the equipment had not been replaced. IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line first opened as a shuttle to 34th Street–Penn Station on June 3, 1917. The line was extended south to South Ferry on July 1, 1918; the Park Place station opened on the same date, and was served by a shuttle between Chambers Street and Wall Street, on the line's Brooklyn Branch. The new "H" system was implemented on August 1, 1918, joining the two halves of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and sending all West Side trains south from Times Square. As a result, shuttle service to this station was replaced by through service. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. During the 1964–1965 fiscal year, the platforms at Park Place, along with those at four other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, were lengthened to to accommodate a ten-car train of IRT cars. Between April 3 and October 1, 1999, this station was closed for escalator replacement and a station rehabilitation. BMT Broadway Line The Cortlandt Street station on the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s Broadway Line opened on January 5, 1918. The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940. The station was overhauled in the late 1970s, with repairs made to the structural and cosmetic appearance. The original BMT wall tiles were removed and the "new" station walls contained cinderblock tiles (colored white with small recesses painted yellow), with black and white station-name signs bolted into the recesses. Lighting was converted from incandescent to fluorescent and staircases and platform edges were repaired. Much of the cosmetic change that came with this renovation was undone in a 1998–1999 renovation. In addition to "state-of-repair" work and upgrades for ADA accessibility, the station's original 1918 tilework was restored. Other improvements were made to the public address system, directional signage, and concrete trackbeds. During the September 11 attacks in 2001, a train operator reported an "explosion" to the MTA's Subway Control Center one minute after the first plane struck the World Trade Center's North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Subway service was halted shortly afterward, and as a result, no one in the subway system died. The station sustained significant damage during the collapse of the World Trade Center. It was closed for repairs, which included removal of