City Hall (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)

Construction

The official start of construction took place on March 24, 1900, at the front steps of City Hall, at a ceremony officiated by then-Mayor Robert Van Wyck. After construction was complete, this station was the chosen place for hanging commemorative plaques recognizing the achievement of building the entire New York City Subway system. A mezzanine area above the platform once had an ornamented oak ticket booth (which no longer exists).

The subway opened to the public on October 27, 1904, after opening ceremonies the day before attended by Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.. More than 15,000 people were issued passes for the first series of rides from the platform. At precisely 2:35 p.m., the first subway train departed from City Hall station with Mayor McClellan at the controls. The event was so heavily attended that police Commissioner McAdoo said every policeman in the city was on duty all day and far into the night. At the time of the opening, President A. E. Orr of the Rapid Transit Board requested that all New Yorkers join in the celebration by blowing whistles and ringing bells. At street level, in the pavement in front of City Hall, a plaque can still be seen commemorating groundbreaking for the subway in 1900.

At the time, the station was also called "City Hall Loop." Unlike the rest of the subway line, the City Hall station had tall tile arches, brass fixtures, chandeliers, skylights, polychrome tile, and elegant curves that ran along the platform. It was lit by wrought iron chandeliers and the three skylights of cut amethyst glass that allowed sunshine onto parts of the platform. During World War II, the skylights were blacked out with tar for safety.

Closure

In the years after the line's construction, increased subway ridership led to longer trains, and thus longer platforms, in the 1940s and early 1950s. The City Hall station, built on a tight curve, would have been difficult to lengthen, and it was also quite close to the far busier Brooklyn Bridge station. In addition, the new, longer trains had center doors in each car, which were an unsafe distance from the platform edge. Movable platform extensions were installed to fill the gap similar to the ones at the South Ferry, Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall (which no longer has gap fillers), Times Square, and 14th Street – Union Square stations, which had a similar problem.

City Hall, notwithstanding its architectural grandeur, was never an important station. In its final year of use, it served only 600 passengers per day and was not open at nights (when trains continued to the loop station at South Ferry). The Brooklyn Bridge station, located a short walk away, at the opposite end of City Hall Park, was more popular, as it provided both local and express service, including trains to Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Bridge streetcar terminal and Park Row station on the BMT elevated lines were above for easy transfers. Given the extensive renovations that would have been required to bring the station up to modern standards, the city decided to close it instead. The final day of service was December 31, 1945.

Current status

In April 1995, federal grant money was sought to reopen the station as a branch of the New York Transit Museum, which occasionally ran tours of the station as part of its popular "Day 1 of the IRT" and "Beneath City Hall" packages. In late 1998, due to perceived security risks in the area around City Hall after terrorist bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the station was declared a "highly secure" area by the Giuliani administration. Plans for the museum annex were abandoned and museum tours ceased for several years.

On the surface, all that can be seen is a concrete slab inset with glass tiles, the skylights for the platform below. This patch of concrete is in the middle of a grove of dogwoods in front of City Hall, close to Broadway. However, for the 2004 Centennial Celebration, one of the street entrances was restored (and presently resembles a modern station entrance), and the station was opened for the duration of the celebration. Otherwise, the station is now used only as an emergency exit. As of 2006, tours of the station are once again being conducted, by the staff of the Transit Museum. However, at present, tours are only open to registered members of the museum and require advance payment and reservations.

The station can also be seen by passengers who choose to keep riding the 6 <6> services as they travel around the loop to head back uptown. The loop track is classified as revenue track, and the newest announcement programs on the R142A subway cars, some of which are used on the 6 <6> services, announce at Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall: "This is the last downtown stop on this train. The next stop will be Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall on the uptown platform." A further announcement follows, warning passengers to remain inside the car at all times. However, the R62A cars also on the 6 <6> services use manual announcements, and thus may not announce this.

Station layout

The station was designed by Rafael Guastavino, and makes extensive use of classic Guastavino tile to sheathe its soaring roof arches. The main consulting architects on the IRT stations were George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge for the company Heins & LaFarge. This station is unusually elegant in architectural style, and is unique among the original IRT stations, employing Romanesque Revival architecture. The travel magazine Travel + Leisure ranked the station 12th in its list of "the most beautiful subway stations in the world" in November 2009.

North of the City Hall station, the IRT Lexington Avenue Line carries four tracks. As seen in the track diagram, left to right, these are the downtown local track, the downtown express track, the uptown express track, and the uptown local track.

South of the Brooklyn Bridge station, there is a switch on the downtown local track, allowing trains to leave service and enter either of two storage tracks. Trains in service turn onto a balloon loop, continuing past the abandoned side platform on the west side of the loop, and re-appearing in the Brooklyn Bridge station on the uptown local track. The uptown and downtown express tracks pass over the loop, continuing south.

In the station itself is one curved five-car-long side platform serving a single balloon loop track.