Original IRT subway Construction and opening Planning for a
subway line in
New York City dates to 1864, The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by
William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. It called for a subway line from
New York City Hall in
lower Manhattan to the
Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into
the Bronx. under which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. On March 14, 1903, the 59th Street station hosted a ceremony in which mayor
Seth Low drove the first spike for the IRT subway's first track. By late 1903, the subway was nearly complete, but the
IRT Powerhouse and the system's
electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening. The 59th Street station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from
City Hall to
145th Street on the West Side Branch. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. Platforms at local stations, such as the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station, were lengthened by between . The northbound platform was extended to the south, while the southbound platform was extended to the north and south. That August, the PSC published a report outlining two alternatives for the station's conversion. The first option called for building a mezzanine under the tracks and relocating the platforms, while the other option called for lowering the tracks and erecting a new mezzanine above. IRT president Theodore Shonts opposed the plan, saying that the plan was too costly. Such a conversion would require underpinning the
Columbus Monument directly above the station, as well as the relocation of a water main next to the subway line. In 1915, the city awarded the PSC the right to build an entrance inside a building on the north side of Columbus Circle, replacing an entrance on the sidewalk. The Broadway Association recommended in mid-1922 that a new entrance be built on the south side of Columbus Circle, since pedestrians had to cross heavy vehicular traffic in the circle. In December 1922, the Transit Commission approved a $3 million project to lengthen platforms at 14 local stations along the original IRT line, including 59th Street and five other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. Platform lengths at these stations would be increased from . The commission postponed the platform-lengthening project in September 1923, at which point the cost had risen to $5.6 million.
IND expansion New York City mayor
John Francis Hylan's original plans for the
Independent Subway System (IND), proposed in 1922, included building over of new lines and taking over nearly of existing lines. The lines were designed to compete with the existing underground, surface, and elevated lines operated by the IRT and
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). On December 9, 1924, the
New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) gave preliminary approval to the construction of a subway line along Eighth Avenue, running from 207th Street. The Eighth Avenue Line station was originally planned to be located at 57th Street, with entrances extending up to 61st Street. By 1927, the IND station had been relocated to be nearer the IRT station, forming a major transit hub under Columbus Circle. The BOT announced a list of stations on the new line in February 1928, with an express station at 58th Street. Though most of the Eighth Avenue Line was dug using a cheap
cut-and-cover method, workers at 59th Street–Columbus Circle had to be careful to not disrupt the existing IRT line overhead. Workers blasted out a portion of the station site, but they had to halt the work when an IRT train passed by. In October 1928, the BOT awarded a $444,000 contract to Charles Mead & Co. for the completion of the
50th Street, 59th Street, and
72nd Street stations on the Eighth Avenue Line. The finishes at the three stations were 20 percent completed by May 1930. By that August, the BOT reported that the Eighth Avenue Line was nearly completed and that the three stations from 50th to 72nd Street were 99.9 percent completed. The entire line was completed by September 1931, except for the installation of turnstiles. A preview event for the new subway was hosted at Columbus Circle on September 8, 1932, two days before the official opening. The Eighth Avenue Line station opened on September 10, 1932, as part of the city-operated IND's initial segment, the Eighth Avenue Line between
Chambers Street and
207th Street. There was a direct connection with the IRT station at Columbus Circle; initially, passengers had to pay an additional fare to transfer between the IRT and the IND. One developer predicted that the IND station's construction would spur development around Columbus Circle, similar to the development boom that had taken place around
Times Square when the original IRT had been built. Although the IND station was built with three
island platforms, the center platform (between the two express tracks) was not used for the first two decades of the station's operation. IND employees did use the center platform for musical performances during Christmas. In the 1930s, the
Works Progress Administration (WPA) proposed decorating the 59th Street station and other IND stations with murals. Supporters of the WPA's plan created a mockup of two murals for the 59th Street station in early 1939. One mural would have depicted a map of Manhattan's subway lines, flanked by "typical street scenes", while the other mural would have depicted Christopher Columbus, flanked by scenes depicting Central Park. In addition, relief panels would have been placed above the stairways leading to the northbound and southbound platforms, respectively depicting personifications of winter and summer. A large sporting arena was then proposed for the western side of Columbus Circle in 1946, with a tunnel connecting directly to the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station. The arena plan, originally envisioned as a replacement for
Madison Square Garden, ultimately evolved into the
New York Coliseum convention center. As part of the unification of the New York City Subway system, the passageways between the IRT and IND stations were placed inside fare control on July 1, 1948. Later the same year, a candy store opened in the mezzanine of the 59th Street station, one of the first such stores approved in the subway system. Starting on March 24, 1953, the IND station's center express platform was opened for passenger service during rush hours; express trains opened their doors on both sides in the peak direction only. Southbound trains served the center platform in the morning, and northbound trains served the platform in the afternoon. In addition, a loudspeaker system was installed at the IND station to help regulate passenger flow. The conversion would entail constructing a separate island platform for express trains, similar to the arrangement at
34th Street–Penn Station, at a cost of $5 million. Additionally, a passageway would be built, connecting directly to the basement of the Coliseum. Edwards, Kelcey and Beck was hired as consulting engineers for the station conversion, which never occurred. NYCTA chairman
Charles L. Patterson suggested that the authority lengthen platforms at local stations along the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to accommodate eight-car local trains, rather than construct an express platform for the IRT at 59th Street. The original IRT stations north of Times Square could barely fit local trains of five or six cars depending on the configuration of the trains. Stations on the line from
50th Street to
96th Street, including this station but excluding the
91st Street station, had their platforms extended in the 1950s to accommodate ten-car trains as part of a $100 million () rebuilding program. in February 1957. The work was complicated by the fact that the contractors could not disrupt subway service or vehicular traffic during the platform-lengthening project. Once the project was completed, eight-car local trains began operating on February 6, 1959. Due to the lengthening of the platforms at
86th Street and 96th Street, the intermediate 91st Street station was closed on February 2, 1959, because it was too close to the other two stations. A
New York Times article attributed the development of the Coliseum and 2 Columbus Circle to the presence of the 59th Street station, which had increased the neighborhood's accessibility. The
Gulf and Western Building (now the
Trump International Hotel and Tower) was constructed on the north side of the circle in the late 1960s. As part of that project, a sunken circular plaza was built, with a large staircase leading to the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station and to the building's basement. This plaza and entrance had been required as part of the building's construction. By 1970, NYCTA officials ranked the Columbus Circle station as one of the twelve most congested places in the subway system, where trains suffered from significant delays due to overcrowding. In March 1975, the NYCTA proposed renovating the 59th Street station as part of a six-year modernization program. The same year, the
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), an MTA subsidiary that owned the Coliseum, spent $1 million on two escalators between the mezzanine and the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 58th Street. The installation included a fiberglass canopy above the escalators, as well as a small garden at mezzanine level near the escalators. The escalators opened in October 1975 and were intended largely for patients of the nearby
Roosevelt Hospital, but they initially were often out of service due to "repeated vandalism". The MTA announced in late 1978 that it would modernize the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station. The improvements included new finishes on the walls and floors; acoustical, signage, and lighting improvements; replacement of old mechanical equipment; and new handrails. In 1979, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the space within the boundaries of the original IRT station, excluding expansions made after 1904, as a city landmark.
1980s and 1990s As part of a pilot program to reduce crime in the New York City Subway system, in May 1981, the MTA spent $500,000 on 76
CCTV screens at the Columbus Circle subway station, monitored by the
New York City Transit Police. Crime at the station increased in the year after the CCTV system was installed, but the Transit Police continued to use the CCTV system, and the MTA expanded the experiment to the
Times Square–42nd Street station. The cameras were deactivated in 1985 after further tests showed that their presence did not help reduce crime. The MTA considered transferring 220 CCTV cameras from these stations to token booths at the stations with the most crime. The MTA announced in 1983 that it would renovate the Columbus Circle station as part of its capital program. To fund the renovation, the MTA placed the neighboring Coliseum for sale in 1984. The next year, a
joint venture of
Boston Properties and Phibro-Salomon Inc. was selected to redevelop the site as part of the Columbus Center project. In exchange for a
zoning bonus, the developers would have funded over $30 million in improvements to the station. The improvements would have included new elevators and escalators; rearranged entrances and staircases; wider platforms; a reconfigured mezzanine and
fare control area; and an entrance into the basement of the proposed building. The MTA planned to remove most of the bas-relief plaques as part of a widening of the southbound platform, relocating two of these plaques above an escalator, though the LPC objected to the proposal. The Coliseum sale was nullified in late 1987, To cover a funding shortfall for the Columbus Circle station's renovation, officials considered diverting $7.7 in million of funding from a proposed renovation of the
Flushing–Main Street station in
Queens. A third plan for Columbus Center was presented in 1989. This proposal included $12 million to $15 million for a renovation of the Columbus Circle station; Boston Properties, the city, and the MTA would each cover one-third of that amount. The renovation of the Columbus Circle station was to have been funded by the sale of the Coliseum, which continued to face delays. Boston Properties withdrew from the Columbus Center project in 1994. Planning for Columbus Center restarted in May 1996, and
Time Warner and
The Related Companies were selected to redevelop that site into the
Time Warner (now Deutsche Bank) Center in 1998. The development would include a refurbished subway entrance at 58th Street, with an elevator to the mezzanine. An entrance or skylight for the subway station was included in two proposals for the circle's reconstruction, but the final plan did not include skylights or a new entrance.
2000s to present In 2002, as part of the construction of the nearby
Hearst Tower, the
Hearst Corporation proposed renovating the station in exchange for permission to include six more stories in its tower. Hearst would fund the addition of three elevators: two to the IND and southbound IRT platforms and the third to the northbound IRT platform. The IRT station's original interiors were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004. As part of the project, two subway entrances opened at the northwest corner of 60th Street and Broadway in 2008, connecting with the downtown IRT platform. The IND station's unused express platform was converted to an underpass between the IRT platforms.
Dattner Architects and
WSP Global designed the renovation, which was completed in 2012. The MTA announced in early 2014 that it would convert a section of the mezzanine between 57th and 59th Streets into a retail complex called TurnStyle. At the time, the station was the seventh-busiest in the system. The MTA initially charged rents of , about one-third the rate of similarly sized above-ground storefronts. The TurnStyle complex opened on April 18, 2016. TurnStyle's storefronts generally had a higher occupancy rate than those in the surrounding neighborhood; The market was temporarily closed from March to October 2020 during the
COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, although half of the market's 39 storefronts closed permanently as a result of the pandemic. Only one of TurnStyle's original stores remained by 2024, and some storeowners reported going days at a time without having any customers at all. An escalator entrance at 58th Street was temporarily closed for structural repairs in late 2024, and the MTA announced in late 2025 that a customer service center would open at the station.
Service history IRT station The IRT's 59th Street–Columbus Circle station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from
City Hall to
145th Street on the West Side Branch. the station was served by local trains along both the West Side (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to
Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street) and East Side (now the
Lenox Avenue Line). Local trains ran from City Hall to
242nd Street in the Bronx during rush hours, continuing south from City Hall to
South Ferry at other times. East Side local trains ran from City Hall to
Lenox Avenue (145th Street). The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line opened south of
Times Square–42nd Street in 1918, and the original line was divided into an H-shaped system. The original subway north of Times Square thus became part of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, and all local trains were sent to South Ferry. The IRT routes at the station were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of
"R-type" rolling stock, which contained
rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The Broadway route to 242nd Street became known as the
1 and the Lenox Avenue route as the
3. After the platforms at the station were lengthened in 1959, all 1 trains became local and all 2 and 3 trains became express, and eight-car local trains began operating. Increased and lengthened service was implemented during peak hours on the 1 train on February 6, 1959. the NYCTA unveiled plans to speed up service on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line through the implementation of a
skip-stop service: the
9 train. When skip-stop service started in 1989, it was only implemented north of
137th Street–City College on weekdays, and 59th Street was served by both the 1 and the 9. Skip-stop service ended on May 27, 2005, as a result of a decrease in the number of riders who benefited.
IND station When the IND Eighth Avenue Line opened, the station was served by express (
A) and local (
AA) trains between Chambers and 207th Street. After the
IND Concourse Line opened on July 1, 1933, the
C express and
CC local trains started serving the station, running via the Concourse Line, while the AA was discontinued. IND service at the station was again modified on December 15, 1940, when a spur to the
IND Sixth Avenue Line opened south of 59th Street. The
BB and CC local trains stopped at the station only during rush hours, while the AA local train served the station during off-peak hours. The C express train ran only during rush hours, and a new express route (the
D) was established, running at all times. In 1985, the AA was relabeled the K, while the BB became the B; the K train was discontinued in 1988. ==Station layout==