First subway 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. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by
John B. McDonald and funded by
August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. Contract 2, which gave the IRT a 35-year lease, was executed between the commission and the Rapid Transit Construction Company on September 11, 1902. Construction of the Contract 2 tunnel began at
State Street in Manhattan on November 8, 1902. By July 1907, the Borough Hall station was nearly completed except for the entrances. The Borough Hall station opened on January 9, 1908, as the terminal for the extension of the
IRT Lexington Avenue Line from Lower Manhattan. Borough Hall was the first underground subway station in
Brooklyn; people waved flags throughout the borough to celebrate the station's opening, and officials celebrated the occasion with a parade and a banquet. Prior to the Borough Hall station's opening, the only rapid transit in Brooklyn had been the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT)'s elevated lines, which operated only as far as the Manhattan ends of the
Brooklyn Bridge. The opening of the station thus also alleviated congestion on lines that used the Brooklyn Bridge. A temporary switch was installed just west of the station, allowing trains to terminate on the southbound track until the line could be extended. An extension to
Atlantic Avenue opened on May 1, 1908, completing the Contract 2 IRT line. Bronze bas-reliefs by
William Ordway Partridge were installed at the Borough Hall station in early 1909 to denote the station's status as Brooklyn's first underground subway station. 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. 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. The northbound platform at the Borough Hall station was extended to the east, while the southbound platform was extended to the east. On January 23, 1911, ten-car express trains began running on the East Side Line, and the next day, ten-car express trains began running on the West Side Line.
Dual Contracts After the original IRT opened, the city began planning new lines. One of these, the
Centre Street Loop in Manhattan, was to connect the
Brooklyn Bridge,
Manhattan Bridge, and
Williamsburg Bridge with a new tunnel under the East River. By 1910, the IRT's Borough Hall station was so crowded that residents of
Brooklyn Heights, a residential neighborhood west of Borough Hall, wanted a stop to be added on the proposed Centre Street Loop within Brooklyn Heights. At the time, the line was supposed to have a station at Borough Hall, then slope downward under the East River. The Public Service Commission ultimately rejected a proposal for a Brooklyn Heights station because it would have required the tunnels to be built at an extremely steep slope of five percent.
IRT lines As part of the
Dual Contracts, approved in 1913, the New York City Public Service Commission planned to split the original IRT system into three segments: two north-south lines, carrying through trains over the Lexington Avenue and Broadway–Seventh Avenue Lines, and an east–west
shuttle under 42nd Street. This would form a roughly H-shaped system. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line would split into two branches south of
Chambers Street, one of which would turn eastward through Lower Manhattan, run under the East River via a new
Clark Street Tunnel, and connect with the existing Contract 2 IRT Brooklyn Line at Borough Hall. The IRT was authorized to construct a station at Borough Hall. The line's Borough Hall station was a two-level station, with a connection to the existing Eastern Parkway Line station; the double-deck arrangement was required because the eastbound track had to pass under the existing line. To minimize disruption at street level, the line was excavated using cast-iron tunneling shields, typically used for underwater tunnels, rather than via the cut-and-cover method used elsewhere in the system. Entrances were planned along Fulton Street (now Cadman Plaza West) at Montague Street and at Myrtle Avenue. but the section of the line under Fulton Street was delayed by disputes over the demolition of part of the
Fulton Street elevated line. By January 1919, the tracks for the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line were completed, but signals and station finishes were still being installed. The IRT decided to push forward the tunnel's opening after learning that BRT workers might go on strike. On April 15, 1919, the Clark Street Tunnel opened, and the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line's Borough Hall station opened with it, extending West Side Line express trains from
Wall Street on the other side of the East River to Atlantic Avenue. The connection doubled the number of IRT trains that could travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and it eased congestion in the Joralemon Street Tunnel, the only other tunnel carrying IRT trains between the two boroughs. Direct express service to
Times Square was provided to the inhabitants of Brooklyn for the first time as a result; trains through the Joralemon Street Tunnel made express stops in Manhattan, skipping Times Square. That year, the Eastern Parkway Line was extended east of Atlantic Avenue. The Joralemon Street Tunnel services, which had previously served all stops on the Eastern Parkway Line, became express services, while the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line services ran local on the Eastern Parkway Line. Although the Eastern Parkway Line's express tracks already existed, they previously had been used only for storage. The tracks were reconfigured so that Eastern Parkway express trains could no longer stop at the
Hoyt Street station, the next stop east.). Under the Dual Contracts, the Whitehall–Montague Street route was to be built, connecting the Broadway Line in Manhattan and the Fourth Avenue subway under the Flatbush Avenue Extension to the west of the
DeKalb Avenue station. The BRT was authorized to construct a station on the Whitehall–Montague Street route at the intersection of Montague and Court Streets. A ramp extending west to Henry Street was also proposed but not built. Construction of the Montague Street Tunnel's two tubes began in 1914. The north tube of the tunnel was holed through on June 2, 1917, followed by the south tube on June 20, 1917. Service via the Montague Tunnel began on August 1, 1920, with the opening of the Court Street station. The Court Street station was one of three subway stations to open in Brooklyn Heights; the other two were
Clark Street on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and
High Street on the
Independent Subway System (IND)'s
Eighth Avenue Line. The BRT, along with the IRT and the city government, shared control of the Borough Hall/Court Street station.
Later modifications 1920s to 1960s train leaving the Court Street BMT station In 1922, the New York State Transit Commission directed its engineers to prepare plans for lengthening the platforms at 23 stations on the BMT's lines to accommodate eight-car trains. As part of the project, platforms would be lengthened to . Though the Transit Commission ordered the BMT to lengthen these platforms in September 1923, no further progress was made until February 16, 1925, when the
New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) commissioned its engineers to examine platform-lengthening plans for Court Street and eleven other stations along the Fourth Avenue Line. It estimated the project would cost $633,000 (). The
New York City Board of Estimate appropriated $362,841 for the lengthening of the platforms at Court Street and five other stations in January 1926 and awarded the contract to Charles Meads & Company early the next month. The platform extension at Court Street opened on August 1, 1927. The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940, and the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. As part of a
Works Progress Administration program, the IRT entrance at Cadman Plaza and Montague Street was integrated into a neighboring park in late 1940. The
New York City Board of Transportation also renovated the station's bathrooms in 1947 as part of a larger initiative to upgrade bathrooms throughout the subway system. Transfer passageways between the three stations were placed inside
fare control on July 1, 1948. During the Cold War, the city government proposed constructing a passageway between the IRT's Borough Hall station and the IND's
Jay Street–Borough Hall station under Myrtle Avenue, which would have doubled as an air-raid shelter. The passageway and other shelters in the New York City Subway system would have cost $15 million; the federal government would have paid half, and the city and state government would have paid the other half. The Board of Transportation announced plans in November 1949 to extend platforms at several IRT stations, including the Eastern Parkway/Lexington Avenue Line platforms at Borough Hall, to accommodate all doors on ten-car trains. Although ten-car trains already operated on the line, the rear car could not open its doors at the station due to the short platforms. Funding for the platform extensions was included in the city's 1950 capital budget. During the 1964–1965 fiscal year, the IRT platforms at Borough Hall were lengthened to to accommodate a ten-car train of IRT cars. The work was undertaken by the Arthur A. Johnson Corporation.
1970s to 1990s The
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had proposed renovating the Borough Hall station as early as its 1975–1979 capital plan. In 1976, with funding from the
Exxon Corporation, the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line station, as well as three others citywide, received new "artfully humorous graffiti" murals and artwork. Local designer Samuel Lebowitz received $5,000 to "improve the level of lighting in an exciting and light hearted way." Some "multicolored animated neon signs" were placed underneath transparent plastic screens; such signs included "an abstract eye that winks every five seconds" and another that looked to be "blow[ing] smoke rings." In 1979, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the space within the boundaries of the original Eastern Parkway Line station, excluding expansions made after 1904, as a city landmark. A renovation of the Eastern Parkway Line station took place in the early 1980s as part of the MTA's Adopt-a-Station program. MTA chairman
Richard Ravitch announced in October 1981 that these platforms would be renovated with funding from the Subway Committee for the Brooklyn Downtown Commercial Crescent, a local civic group. The
Brooklyn Union Gas Company raised $25,000, while other businesses raised another $25,000; the
Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) provided a matching grant of $50,000. In 1982, the UMTA gave a $66 million grant to the New York City Transit Authority, part of which was allocated for the renovation of several subway stations, including Borough Hall's IRT platforms. Work on the project had begun by 1983 One of the issues was that the MTA had wanted to save the original tiles in the Eastern Parkway Line station, a designated New York City landmark, but the agency could not get the tiles to stick to the wall. New tiles had to be imported from
Czechoslovakia, and some tiles were stolen before they could be installed. Some newly-renovated parts of the station were already deteriorating by 1987, such as tiled floors that had come loose. as well as a ceiling that had been repainted above the platforms but not the tracks. At that point, it had taken nearly as long to renovate the station as to construct the original line. The
New York City Transit Authority eventually filed a lawsuit to compel the renovation contractor to complete the project. The rest of the complex was also slated to be renovated, but the improvements were temporarily delayed in 1987 because of the poor quality of the Eastern Parkway Line station's renovation. MTA officials diverted funding for the other platforms' renovations in December 1989 to cover a budget shortfall. In the early 1990s, the BMT station's columns were repainted "Newport green" to match the mosaic tiles as part of a systemwide repainting program. Workers were installing elevators at the Borough Hall IRT stations by 1992, as part of the MTA's
plan to make dozens of "key stations" accessible to passengers with disabilities. The work was finished by the next year. Most of the IRT portion of the complex became wheelchair-accessible, except for the eastbound Eastern Parkway Line platform. The subway entrance at Clinton Street was converted into a part-time entrance in 1994, after the removal of high entry-exit turnstiles at the entrance. The escalators to the BMT station were replaced in 1997; the repair project was delayed by two months after several dozen escalator steps were stolen. Even after the repairs were completed, the escalators continued to experience periodic outages.
2000s to present The original Eastern Parkway Line station's interiors were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The collapse of the 100-year-old ceiling necessitated $8.3 million in emergency repairs. Prior to the ceiling collapse, neither the MTA nor the
New York City Department of Transportation had identified the Borough Hall station as a "priority" station requiring renovation. An internal report, released in late 2019, found that the staff sent to inspect the station verified the defect existed in 2017, but underestimated its severity due to a lack of expertise in
terracotta ceilings, nor was the issue escalated to engineers who were familiar with terracotta. The MTA report suggested that special care be taken in the inspection of the thirteen subway stations that have terracotta ceilings due to the different properties when compared to concrete or steel. The IRT station's existing elevators were closed for replacement for several months starting in July 2020. The two elevators at the western end of the BMT's Court Street station were also replaced starting in 2022, requiring the closure of the exit at Clinton Street; this was part of a program to replace elevators across the subway system. The BMT elevators at Clinton Street reopened in June 2023. The BMT platform also received structural and visual upgrades, which were completed in January 2024. In November 2022, the MTA announced that it would award a $106 million contract for the installation of additional elevators at the Borough Hall station complex. The project would make the Eastern Parkway Line platforms fully accessible. The contract included one elevator from the mezzanine to each of the Eastern Parkway Line platforms, as well as one elevator from the mezzanine to the street. , work was scheduled to begin in the middle of that year and be completed in 2025; the elevators ultimately opened in December 2025. New York City councilmember
Lincoln Restler founded a volunteer group, the Friends of MTA Station Group, in early 2023 to advocate for improvements to the Borough Hall station and four other subway stations in Brooklyn.
Service history IRT stations Initially, the Eastern Parkway Line station was served by express 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). The express trains, running to Atlantic Avenue, had their northern terminus at
242nd Street or
West Farms (
180th Street). Lenox local trains to
145th Street served the station during late nights. The Lexington Avenue Line north of
Grand Central–42nd Street opened on August 1, 1918, and all Eastern Parkway Line services were sent via the Lexington Avenue Line. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line's Brooklyn branch carried the express services to 242nd Street or via the Lenox Avenue Line when the Clark Street Tunnel opened in 1919). To the south, trains ran to
Flatbush Avenue or
Utica Avenue starting in 1920 and to
New Lots Avenue starting in 1924. The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of
"R-type" rolling stock, which contained
rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The 2, 3, 4, and 5 trains were given their present designations at that time. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line services became the 2 and 3, and the Lexington Avenue/Eastern Parkway Line services became the 4 and 5.
BMT station The Court Street BMT station opened when the Montague Street Tunnel opened on August 1, 1920, Broadway Line trains to Brooklyn could either use the tunnel, stopping at Court Street and five other stations in
Lower Manhattan and
Downtown Brooklyn, or use the
Manhattan Bridge, which skipped all of these stations. Initially, Court Street was served by
Fourth Avenue Line local trains (labeled as the
BMT 2),
Brighton Beach Line express trains (the
BMT 1), and some rush-hour
West End Line trains (the
BMT 3). Brighton express trains were later rerouted to the Manhattan Bridge, while Brighton locals started using the tunnel. After the
BMT Nassau Street Line was completed in 1931, West End trains via the Montague Street Tunnel started using the Nassau Street Line instead of the Broadway Line in Manhattan.) and the
QJ began using the Montague Street Tunnel, running via Court Street; the QJ was replaced by the
M in 1973. After the
Manhattan Bridge was closed for repairs in 1986, all off-peak N trains began running through the Montague Street Tunnel and serving Court Street. Starting in December 1988, N and R trains ran through the tunnel and the Whitehall Street station at all times. When the Manhattan Bridge reopened in February 2004, the R train began serving the station at all times except late nights, while the N train only served the station at night. The
M train stopped serving the station when it was rerouted to
Midtown Manhattan in 2010. When the Montague Street Tunnel closed for repairs in August 2013, weekday R service was divided into two segments; the Court Street station was the northern terminus of the Brooklyn segment. == Station layout ==