Has New York City ever experienced an earthquake before?

A large majority of the East Coast of the United States is still undoubtedly reeling after an unexpected earthquake happened in New Jersey earlier this morning. 

In the aftermath of the quake happening near Lebanon, NJ, various states across the East Coast felt the rumblings — including New York, Connecticut; Massachusetts Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. In New York, specifically, a plethora of boroughs felt the shaking of the quake — including Brooklyn, Manhattan, and much of the New York City area. Considering how relatively rare it truly is for the East Coast to experience an earthquake, it hardly comes as a huge surprise that a large portion of the population is still in shock.

As to be expected, a multitude of searches and questions are now piling in, especially in regards to whether or not NYC has ever experienced an earthquake before, and when exactly was the last time it happened.

Is this the first time an earthquake took place in NYC?

Despite the rarity of NYC experiencing earthquakes, today’s earthquake certainly did not mark the first time that New York has ever experienced an earthquake. In the past, a handful of earthquakes have shaken the foundation of NYC — including an earthquake all the way back in 1884, another one in the 1980s, one in 2011, and several minor tremors that occurred in the early 2000s. 

So since earthquakes don’t seem to happen in NYC too often, there’s absolutely no denying that having the first one in over a decade is surely a shock to the majority of New Yorkers — many of whom are expressing their shock and creating memes out of the entire situation over at X.