The Queens Boulevard Line was one of the first lines built by the city-owned
Independent Subway System (IND), and stretches between the
IND Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan and
179th Street and Hillside Avenue in
Jamaica, Queens. The Queens Boulevard Line was in part financed by a
Public Works Administration (PWA) loan and grant of $25 million. One of the proposed stations would have been located at Steinway Street. The first section of the line, west from
Roosevelt Avenue to
50th Street, opened on August 19, 1933. It was the first stop in Queens after crossing the East River for six years until the 1939 opening of
23rd Street–Ely Avenue. Until the opening of the
60th Street Tunnel Connection in 1955 after the unification of the subway, only express trains in Queens ran to Manhattan; local trains were routed onto the
IND Crosstown Line. This service pattern is no longer in use due to the opening of the
63rd Street track connector in 2001, and Crosstown Line trains now terminate one stop earlier at
Court Square. In 1978, the
New York City Department of City Planning proposed making Queens Plaza into a large subway station complex. Queens Plaza would have been converted to a transfer station with the
63rd Street Line, which at that time was described as a "tunnel to nowhere" that did not connect with any other lines in Queens. The complex would also have had a retail center above it, as well as a transfer to the elevated
Queensboro Plaza station. In 2002, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that elevators would be installed at the Queens Plaza station. The original elevators were replaced with new elevators in August 2025.
Service history When the station opened, it was served by
E trains running to
Hudson Terminal (today's World Trade Center) in Manhattan, as well as
GG trains on the
IND Crosstown Line. The GG initially ran as a shuttle service between Queens Plaza and
Nassau Avenue on the Crosstown Line. In 1940, trains began serving the station, running via the newly opened
IND Sixth Avenue Line. When the 60th Street Tunnel Connection opened, the BMT
1 local (which became the
QT in the early 1960s) started serving the station. Starting in 1961, the
RR was sent through the connection during daytime hours; in 1967, it was replaced with the
EE. From 1976, the
N was extended through the connection, absorbing the EE;. The northern terminus of GG service was cut back to Queens Plaza during late nights in 1977. Effective May 6, 1985, use of double letters to indicate local service was discontinued, so the GG was relabeled G. The R, successor to the RR, began serving the station in 1987 after the N was rerouted in Queens. 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, requiring the truncation of the G to Court Square during weekdays; as such, G trains did not serve the station during these times. On April 19, 2010, G service was permanently truncated to Court Square, 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==