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. They 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. A plan was formally adopted in 1897, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. or four tracks. Under the 1898 iteration of the plan, the loop was to diverge from the line at the south end of Centre Street, traveling west under
City Hall Park, south under
Broadway, and then northeast under
Park Row. In addition, tracks from the loop would have led to the post office building. East of the loop, there were two express tracks and two storage tracks. Degnon-McLean Contracting Company was awarded the contract for Section 1, from the City Hall loop to Chambers Street. Work began promptly after the groundbreaking. Plans for the loop under City Hall Park were modified in January 1901, providing for a shortened loop. At the end of the month, trees in City Hall Park were being removed in preparation for the loop's construction. The portion of the loop in City Hall Park was excavated starting in April 1901. The trees were removed from the park using derricks. One worker was killed that May when a derrick boom in front of the subway excavation was knocked loose. Sand from the excavation was sold to builders who sought the sand for its "good quality". The short section adjacent to the post office could not be constructed because the
Treasury Secretary had not approved the work, leading the IRT to request approval from
Congress. The entirety of the loop within City Hall Park had been excavated by that August. Most of the excavation was covered over shortly afterward, although a small part remained open to facilitate work on the station. In late 1901, the contractors began excavating the tunnel under Park Row, which would carry both the northbound track of the loop and the express tracks to Brooklyn. Work on the station was placed on hold because the station's concrete vaults were difficult to pour during winter. By February 1902, three-fourths of the work for the station's side walls had been completed, and work had started on the vaults. The tunnel under Park Row had been fully excavated and was being covered with steel beams. Most of the loop was completed by late 1902, except for the section under the post office. The contractors excavated the remainder of the loop after they were given temporary permission, in December 1902, to use the vaults underneath the post office.
Completion By late 1903, the tilework of the sidewalks and the station's staircase were completed. Construction materials were being stored in the station's only entrance and exit. The subway was nearly complete, but the
IRT Powerhouse and the system's
electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening. On New Year's Day 1904, mayor
George B. McClellan Jr. and a group of wealthy New Yorkers gathered at the City Hall station and traveled to
125th Street using
handcars. The IRT conducted several more handcar trips afterward. The first train to run on its own power traveled from 125th Street to City Hall in April 1904. The City Hall station opened on October 27, 1904, as the southern
terminal station of the original 28-station
New York City Subway line to
145th Street on the West Side Branch, now the
Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. The first subway train departed from City Hall at precisely 2:34 p.m., with McClellan at the controls. President A. E. Orr of the Rapid Transit Board requested that all New Yorkers join in the celebration by blowing whistles and ringing bells. The new line carried 27,000 passengers for free until 6 p.m., and another 125,000 passengers paid to ride the subway in the six-hour period that followed. Furthermore, the City Hall station was originally an entrance-only station; disembarking passengers had to go to the Brooklyn Bridge station. the City Hall Loop was served by local trains to the West Side Branch at all times and by local trains to
145th Street on the East Side Branch (now
Lenox Avenue Line) during the daytime. By July 1905, East Side local trains to 145th Street ran to City Hall at all times, while West Side locals bypassed this station and went to
Bowling Green or
South Ferry. To address ventilation issues, the IRT installed ventilation grates in City Hall Park in mid-1906. By the end of the year, West Side locals ran to City Hall during rush hours, and East Side locals ran to City Hall at all times. Not long after the station opened, the IRT started displaying advertisements in the station, which was highly controversial but was allowed under the IRT's contract to operate the route. The New York City government initially did not find the ads to be problematic, but public outcry led the city to file a lawsuit to force the IRT to remove the ads. In 1907, the
New York Supreme Court ruled that the IRT was allowed to keep the ads. To address overcrowding, in 1909, the
New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. 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. The City Hall station was not lengthened, but the platforms at other stations were extended, In 1938, as part of a remodeling of City Hall Park, city parks commissioner
Robert Moses proposed relocating the entrances of the IRT's City Hall station and those of the
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s adjacent
City Hall station. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940.
Decline Increased subway ridership led to longer trains, and thus longer platforms, in the years after the subway's construction. 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–City Hall station. By the 1930s, the
New York Herald Tribune reported that the City Hall station was little used, "and many of the younger generation have never seen it". During World War II, shortly before the station's closure, the skylights were
blacked out with tar for safety. when trains continued to
South Ferry. and it was much closer to the Brooklyn Bridge streetcar terminal and the BMT's
Park Row elevated station. The station recorded 255,000 entries in its final year, or about 800 entries per day. In 1976, the
New York City Transit Authority reopened the abandoned
Court Street station in Brooklyn as the New York Transit Exhibit, which eventually became the
New York Transit Museum (NYTM). In 1979, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the City Hall station as a city landmark, along with eleven other stations on the original IRT.
Proposals for reuse By the 1980s, Mayor
Ed Koch suggested allowing a restaurant to open in the old station as part of a larger plan to renovate City Hall Park. As part of this plan, replicas of the IRT's original cast-iron entrance kiosks would have been built. Civic leaders and city officials visited the station in July 1986. Ross Sandler, the city's transportation commissioner and a proponent of the station's reopening, lamented that the station was a "designated landmark that people can't visit". The plan had still not advanced over a year later, when parks commissioner
Henry J. Stern said the station's restoration was dependent on whether funding to renovate City Hall Park was secured. Ultimately, the idea was overruled by the
New York City Police Department, which expressed concerns that the station's location beneath
New York City Hall was a security vulnerability. In April 1995, the NYTM sought funding to reopen the station as a branch of the museum. The
New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) estimated that about $1 million would be needed just to reopen the station, By 1997, some $2 million in state and federal funding had been allocated. Early the next year, MTA officials started refurbishing the station's corridors and offered up to $5 million for underground repairs to City Hall Park, which at the time was being renovated. However, in late 1998, the
administration of mayor
Rudy Giuliani rejected the proposal, citing security risks in the area around City Hall after
terrorist bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The station was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004. only NYTM members were allowed on these tours. The station remained in good condition in 2019, though only one of the original skylights remained. After
Zohran Mamdani won the
2025 New York City mayoral election, his mayoral transition team used the City Hall station for his formal swearing-in ceremony on January 1, 2026. Mamdani said he had chosen to be sworn in there because it was a "physical monument" to New York City's ambitious past. == Station layout ==