Opening and early years The
Queens Boulevard Line was one of the first built by the city-owned
Independent Subway System (IND), and was planned to stretch between the
IND Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan and 178th Street and Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, with a stop at Fifth Avenue. The line was first proposed in 1925. Bids for the 53rd Street subway tunnel were received in October 1926, and work started in April 1927. The 53rd Street Tunnel was fully excavated between Queens and Manhattan in January 1929. The Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station opened on August 19, 1933 with the opening of the IND Queens Boulevard Line to
Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Service was initially provided by E trains running via the IND Eighth Avenue Line. On December 15, 1940, the
IND Sixth Avenue Line opened between
West Fourth Street–Washington Square and
59th Street–Columbus Circle. On this date, trains began using this station, diverging west of the station onto the Sixth Avenue Line. In 1959, a project started to replace the four escalators with new wider escalators—two at the Madison Avenue end of the station, and two at the Fifth Avenue end. The new long escalators were intended to increase capacity, and could run at speeds of per minute. On September 8, 1959, the first of the four new 4-foot-wide escalators was put into place at the Madison Avenue entrance, replacing one of the 2-foot-wide escalators. The entire project cost $1.2 million. As part of the project, other improvements were made: the lighting at the station was replaced with fluorescent lighting, and the stairways at the station were moved.
Renovation In 1981, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) listed the station among the 69 most deteriorated stations in the subway system. That same year, the MTA announced the creation of its Culture Stations program to install public art in the subway. The Culture Stations program was started to deter graffiti, and was inspired by legislation in the
New York City Council that mandated that 1% of the cost of constructing public buildings be used for art. The program was modelled on the
Louvre – Rivoli station on the
Paris Métro, which featured reproductions of the artwork on display in the Louvre. Four stations, namely Fifth Avenue/53rd Street,
Astor Place,
Eastern Parkway–Brooklyn Museum and
66th Street–Lincoln Center, were selected for the program due to their proximity to cultural institutions, and would be among the first stations part of the MTA's new station refurbishment program, which began in 1982. The Fifth Avenue station was chosen for its proximity to five museums, the
New York Public Library Main Branch, and major corporations. The stations in the Culture Stations program were to be completed by making use of both private and public funding. This station was redesigned by
Lee Harris Pomeroy Architects. The modernization project was opened to bidders on November 9, 1982, and was expected to cost between $4 and $6 million. Some funding for the renovation came from a $66 million grant that the
Urban Mass Transportation Administration had given to the New York City Transit Authority in 1982. In addition,
Fisher Brothers (the developers of the nearby
Park Avenue Plaza office building) had contributed $100,000 to a special fund for improvements to the Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station. Design work was completed in 1983. The renovation was originally scheduled to be complete in December 1984 but was pushed back by two years. As part of the renovation, rows of light boxes containing displays showing information about objects in nearby museums such as the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), as well as points of interest in the vicinity, were installed on each platform. The light boxes were designed by the project's graphic designers,
Pentagram. In 1996,
Ralph Fasanella's 1950 painting "Subway Riders" was installed outside
fare control in the full-time
mezzanine. It was the first
oil painting installed in a subway station in New York City. Fasanella had donated it to the
American Folk Art Museum on the condition that it stay permanently displayed in the subway under the
MTA Arts & Design program, saying, "I'd rather have people see this painting in the subway than any museum."
Proposed improvements , near the southwest corner of 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue As part of the rezoning of
East Midtown, which was approved in 2017, developers were permitted to construct buildings at the maximum permitted
floor area ratio if they
transferred landmark development rights, rebuilt overbuilt floor area, or made pre-identified improvements to subway stations in the area. The six stations chosen for improvements (
Grand Central–42nd Street,
Lexington Avenue/51st Street,
42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue,
47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center,
Lexington Avenue/59th Street, and Fifth Avenue/53rd Street) were prioritized due to high ridership. Improvement projects include making stations compliant with the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, improving circulation and wayfinding, and reducing congestion by constructing new entrances, or by installing escalators and wider staircases. A list of three levels of improvements were created by the MTA and the
New York City Department of City Planning. Type 1 improvements would give a developer of additional floor area, Type 2 improvements would give them an additional , and Type 3 improvements would give them an additional . Initially, in 2012, two improvements were considered for the Fifth Avenue station. These would entail adding or widening stairs between the upper and lower level platform at the east end of the station, and adding or widening the escalators between the upper level platform and the Madison Avenue mezzanine. The main reasoning for the first of the two improvements was because that staircase is over capacity, clearing in 75 seconds during the morning rush hour, greater than the 45 second guideline. The reasoning of the second was because the escalators are at capacity, and would become over capacity if the capacity of the staircase between the two levels was increased. As approved, the East Midtown rezoning provides for one Type 1 improvement and five Type 2 improvements at this station. The Type 1 improvement would entail constructing a new street entrance on 53rd Street west of Madison Avenue. One of the Type 2 improvements would be the construction of a new staircase between the upper level platform and the mezzanine, as well as a new staircase between the upper and lower level platforms. Developers could also elect to install an elevator between the mezzanine and the two platforms. Another potential improvement would be the installation of two escalators between the upper level platform and the mezzanine.
Service history When the station opened, it was served by
E trains running to
Hudson Terminal (today's World Trade Center) in Manhattan. In 1940, trains began serving the station, running via the newly opened
IND Sixth Avenue Line. On December 16, 2001, the connection to the
IND 63rd Street Line opened, and the F was rerouted onto it. The new peak-hour train was created to replace the F via 53rd Street while running local on Queens Boulevard. On June 27, 2010, V service was eliminated and replaced by the train. On December 8, 2025, the F and
<F> express trains began serving the station on weekdays during the day, running via the 53rd Street Tunnel. The M train began running via the 63rd Street Tunnel during weekdays when it runs to Queens. == Station layout ==