Construction and opening The
New York Public Service Commission adopted plans for what was known as the Broadway–Lexington Avenue route on December 31, 1907. This route began at
the Battery and ran under
Greenwich Street, Vesey Street, Broadway to
Ninth Street, private property to
Irving Place, and Irving Place and
Lexington Avenue to the
Harlem River. After crossing under the Harlem River into
the Bronx, the route split at Park Avenue and 138th Street, with one branch continuing north to and along
Jerome Avenue to
Woodlawn Cemetery, and the other heading east and northeast along 138th Street,
Southern Boulevard, and
Westchester Avenue to
Pelham Bay Park. In early 1908, the Tri-borough plan was formed, combining this route, the under-construction
Centre Street Loop Subway in Manhattan and
Fourth Avenue Subway in Brooklyn, a
Canal Street subway from the Fourth Avenue Subway via the Manhattan Bridge to the
Hudson River, and several other lines in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company submitted a proposal to the Commission, dated March 2, 1911, to operate the Tri-borough system (but under Church Street instead of Greenwich Street), as well as a branch along Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 59th Street from Ninth Street north and east to the
Queensboro Bridge; the Canal Street subway was to merge with the Broadway Line instead of continuing to the Hudson River. The city, the BRT, and the
Interborough Rapid Transit Company (which operated the first
subway and four
elevated lines in Manhattan) came to an agreement, and sent a report to the
New York City Board of Estimate on June 5, 1911. The line along Broadway to 59th Street was assigned to the BRT, while the IRT obtained the
Lexington Avenue line, connecting with its existing route at
Grand Central–42nd Street. Construction began on Lexington Avenue on July 31, and on Broadway the next year. The
Dual Contracts, two operating contracts between the city and the BMT and IRT, were adopted on March 4, 1913. The original plan there was to build a pair of single-track tunnels under 59th and 60th Streets, rising onto the
Queensboro Bridge and crossing the
East River to Queens, with stations at Fifth and Lexington Avenues. In July 1914, the Public Service Commission opened bids for the construction of the two tunnels. The Degnon Contracting Company submitted the lowest of five bids for the project at just over $2.8 million. Degnon received the contract and began constructing the tunnels that September. In 1915, the Public Service Commission approved a request from the
New York City Board of Estimate to place both tracks under 60th Street and cross the East River in the
60th Street Tunnel. A. W. King received a $126,000 contract in December 1918 to install finishes at the Lexington Avenue and Fifth Avenue stations on the Broadway Line. The station opened on September 1, 1919, as part of an extension of the Broadway Line from
57th Street–Seventh Avenue to
Lexington Avenue/59th Street. Service originally operated northward to Lexington Avenue and southward to
Whitehall Street at the southern end of Manhattan.
Later years The station was operated by the BMT until the city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940. This station was overhauled in the late 1970s. The MTA fixed the station's structure and overall appearance, replacing the original wall tiles, old signs, and incandescent lighting with 1970s modern-look wall tile band and tablet mosaics, signs and fluorescent lights. It also fixed staircases and platform edges. In 2002, the station received a major overhaul. It received state-of-art repairs as well as an upgrade of the station for
ADA compliance and restoration the original late 1910s tiling. The MTA repaired the staircases, re-tiling for the walls, installed new tiling on the floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, and installed
ADA yellow safety threads along the platform edges, new signs, and new track-beds in both directions. == Station layout ==