LIRR's last strike was on June 17, 1994. Here's what else happened that day.

The date: June 17, 1994.

A date so strangely oddball, curious and historic for America and for American sports that ESPN made a 30-for-30 documentary film about it titled "June 17th, 1994." The film was a chance "to look at the soul of America," said director Brett Morgan.

For Long Island commuters the date is remembered for a different reason: It marks the last time the Long Island Rail Road went on strike.

The chaos it caused rail riders comes to mind now as LIRR unions threaten to again shut down service beginning at midnight Friday, May 15. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority noted this week on its website the move "would have a devastating impact" for the almost 300,000 passengers who use the railroad daily.

In the event of a strike, the MTA said it would provide "limited shuttle bus service" weekdays to serve "essential workers and those who cannot telecommute." It acknowledges, however, there are shortcomings in the shuttle bus-to-New York City transit subway and bus alternative routes — as there were when the last strike wreaked havoc for riders that Friday in 1994.

"Unfortunately," the MTA said in its website statement this week, "there is no substitute for the Long Island Rail Road, and its shutdown will cause severe congestion and delays."

The LIRR has been shut down by strikes three times in its history — in 1960, 1987 and 1994.

Asked this week about the latest threat, the executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, Lisa Daglian, told Newsday in a telephone interview: "The implications are terrible. The implications for riders are dire, the implications for the region are significant. ... If it’s sill not settled as we approach midnight on May 15, everybody needs to come to the table — though, hopefully, it doesn’t come to that point, because I don’t think anybody wants a strike."

As Daglian, a dedicated Mets fan, said: "We’ve already had Strike 3on the LIRR. Let’s not make it four."

Other events that date

Golf legend Arnold Palmer played his final round in the U.S. Open at the Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania.

In Chicago, Oprah Winfrey and President Bill Clinton presided over opening ceremonies at the opening game of the first World Cup soccer tournament ever hosted in the United States, at which Germany beat Bolivia, 1-0.

In New York City, fans celebrated the first NHL Stanley Cup championship for the New York Rangers in 54 years with a parade through Manhattan's Canyon of Heroes.

And over at Madison Square Garden, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing and the New York Knicks faced off against Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The Knicks won that game, but lost in seven.

Across America that night, most people were glued to a made-for-television event unfolding on the West Coast — the low-speed police pursuit of a white Ford Bronco carrying football great O.J. Simpson, who was being sought for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her boyfriend, Ronald Goldman.

It had already been an epic, tumultuous year for America and for commuters, who’d gone weeks with the strike threat looming. Contentious talks were held between the railroad and the United Transportation Union, both spending their final four days in negotiating at a Melville hotel just before the two-day walkout.

That April, former President Richard M. Nixon — the only U.S. president to resign — died in New York City.

Less than a month before the strike former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Jackie O, died in Manhattan, while Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic.

All this as the LIRR was headed for its June shutdown and Major League Baseball went on strike that August. That strike led to the cancellation of the remainder of the season — and the 1994 World Series.

First LIRR strike in 1960

The first LIRR strike began in July 1960; it involved the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and a bevy of long-term labor disputes. It lasted 26 days and was settled on Aug. 5 following intervention by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller; workers were granted a five-day workweek.

The second strike took place in January 1987 after 11 unions failed to negotiate new contracts. It lasted 11 days.

The 1994 strike? It lasted long enough to be inconvenient.

Chair of the Long Island Rail Road Commuters Council Gerard P. Bringmann also is an MTA Board Member representing railroad riders. In 1994, he was commuting into the city from Patchogue.

"It was rough," Bringmann told Newsday in September, days before the White House intervened to pause the strike threat that again looms now. "You had to take a bus to the end of the subway lines — and then you had to work it out from there. I had to take the E train for the whole length of the line and that was about 45-to-50 minutes on the subway alone. That was after a bus from Patchogue."

Attorney Cory L. Weiss, 68, of Centerport, spoke to Newsday during the 1994 strike. On Thursday, he said that strike was over so quick. "To be honest, I can’t even remember it."

But Weiss said he did have concerns about the looming strike. He commutes daily from Huntington to Penn Station for his job as chair of the landlord and tenant litigation practice for Tarter Krinsky & Drogin on Broadway in Manhattan. Unlike some co-workers, he said, his legal team must appear in court. So, remote work isn't an option.

"I guess I’d have to drive into the city, since I’d have to go to court for litigation," he said. "It’d be inconvenient, but I wouldn’t have a choice."

Former Long Island resident Alfred Camaiore, who retired to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, told Newsday in September that the 1994 railroad strike wasn't half as bad as the one in 1987.

"That was a big mess," Camaiore said, "because we lived on Long Island, lived in Huntington, and I worked in the New York State courts at 100 Centre St. I had a sister in Woodside [Queens] and so I had to drive there, catch the 7 train from Woodside to Manhattan — then, take the 1 downtown. ... It was a big pain. But now? Now, I think it's going to be worse, a horror, because there's more people commuting. Let's just say I'm grateful I don't have to deal with it now."

A fourth LIRR strike?

Is a fourth strike in store for LIRR riders?

PCAC assistant director Brian Fritsch said he's "heartened" the sides agreed to continue negotiations, but believed a pre-strike pause like the one in September was no longer in the cards.

"I think the ship has kind of sailed on this," he said in a phone interview this week. "I think the sides have gone as far as they can and if they can't reach an agreement by the deadline, that's it."

Daglian remains more optimistic.

"I think the sides will talk to the last minute. ... I don't think anybody wants a strike. ... It's bad for New York, it's bad for the workforce, it's bad for the economy. It's bad for the entire region. The best solution is to resolve the issues before it becomes a strike."

And, the chances of that happening?

"I guess," Daglian said, "we'll know the answer at 12:01."