The Lexington Avenue/59th Street station (also signed as 59th Street–Lexington Avenue) is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the BMT Broadway Line. It is located at Lexington Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets, on the border of Midtown and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The station complex is the fourteenth-busiest in the system, with over 21 million passengers in 2016.
It is served by the , , and trains at all times, the and trains except at night, and the train only on weekdays during the day. In addition, the <6> train stops here in the peak direction only on weekdays during the day.
A free out-of-system OMNY transfer is available to the 63rd Street Lines ( and trains, as well as night/weekend trains and rush-hour and trains) by exiting the station and walking to the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station.
History Construction and planning Following the completion of the original subway line operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), there were plans to construct the Broadway–Lexington Avenue Line along Manhattan's east side. 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.Engineering News, A New Subway Line for New York City , Volume 63, No. 10, March 10, 1910
The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT; after 1923, the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation or BMT) 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 IRT reached an agreement and sent a report to the New York City Board of Estimate on June 5, 1911, wherein the line along Broadway to 59th Street was assigned to the BRT. The New York City Board of Estimate approved the report on June 21.
Originally, the commission had also assigned the operation of the Lexington Avenue Line in Manhattan to the BRT, as the IRT had withdrawn from negotiations over the proposed tri-borough system. The IRT proposed in December 1911 that it be assigned the Lexington Avenue Line, in exchange for dropping its opposition to the BRT's operation of the Broadway Line. The Lexington Avenue Line was to connect with the IRT's existing subway north of Grand Central–42nd Street. The IRT submitted an offer for what became its portion of the Dual Contracts on February 27, 1912. The Dual Contracts, two operating contracts between the city and the BMT and IRT, were adopted on March 4, 1913, and signed on March 19. The BRT was authorized to construct a station on its Broadway Line at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street, while the IRT was authorized to construct a local station on its Lexington Avenue Line at the same location.
Lexington Avenue Line station The Public Service Commission awarded five construction contracts for the construction of the Lexington Avenue Line on July 20, 1911, four of which were assigned to the Bradley Construction Company. Work on the line began on July 31. Among the contracts awarded to the Bradley Construction Company was that for section 8 of the Lexington Avenue Line, which extended from 53rd to 67th Street. This section of the line was built as a two-level tunnel, with local tracks above the express tracks. Workers excavated an shaft at 62nd Street and then dug out both levels of the tunnel. During the construction of section 8, the contractor had to underpin one of every five buildings on Lexington Avenue between 53rd and 67th Street. By late 1912, work on both levels was proceeding simultaneously. At least 11 workers were killed in June 1913 when a portion of the tunnel near 56th Street collapsed. In addition. part of the upper level's roof collapsed near 60th Street in January 1914, killing one worker and injuring two more.
As part of the Dual Contracts, the Public Service Commission planned to split the original IRT into three segments: two north–south lines, carrying through trains over the Lexington Avenue and Broadway–Seventh Avenue Lines, and a west–east shuttle under 42nd Street. This would form a roughly H-shaped system. It was predicted that the subway extension would lead to the growth of the Upper East Side and the Bronx. After the modified plans were released, property owners near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 59th Street advocated for the local station at that intersection to be converted into an express station. However, the Public Service Commission's chief engineer Alfred Craven rejected the proposal in August 1914, saying it would be too expensive to construct express platforms at the station.
Work on the Lexington Avenue Line tunnel between 53rd and 67th Streets had been completed by early 1915, but it could not be opened for at least three years because a connection to the existing IRT at Grand Central–42nd Street was still under construction. In July 1915, the Public Service Commission received the rights to build a subway entrance for the IRT station at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street within the Bloomingdale's flagship store. Although the subway remained unopened, real-estate prices around Lexington Avenue and 59th Street had begun to increase by 1916. The Lexington Avenue Line station at 59th Street opened on July 17, 1918, with service initially running between Grand Central–42nd Street and 167th Street via the line's local tracks. On August 1, the "H system" was put into place, with through service beginning on the new east and west side trunk lines, and the institution of the 42nd Street Shuttle along the old connection between the sides. The cost of the extension from Grand Central was $58 million.
Broadway Line station In the report that had been submitted to the Board of Estimate in June 1911, the BRT was to construct a line traveling east under 59th Street before ascending onto the Queensboro Bridge. The original plan there was to build a pair of single-track tunnels under 59th and 60th Streets, rising onto the bridge to Queens, with stations at Fifth and Lexington Avenues. Just east of the Lexington Avenue station, the line would have ascended at a 5.8 percent grade to reach the bridge. 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.
By December 1914, the Board of Estimate had abandoned its original proposal to use the Queensboro Bridge for subway trains, which would have required $2.6 million in modifications to the bridge and would have caused serious congestion. Instead, the board planned to build a double-tracked 60th Street Tunnel under the East River, which would allow the city to save $500,000 by not constructing a tunnel under 59th Street. Degnon proposed building this tunnel for $4.5 million. The Board of Estimate approved the plan in February 1915, and the New York State Legislature shortly afterward legally approved the revised route. On July 28, 1915, the Public Service Commission approved the Board of Estimate's request to place both tracks under 60th Street and cross the East River in the 60th Street Tunnel. A piece of the tunnel under 59th Street had already been built and became a walkway connecting the two side platforms of the IRT's 59th Street station.Joseph Brennan, Abandoned Stations: Lexington Ave (BMT) unfinished platforms , accessed March 21, 2007
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 the new terminal of the Broadway Line with an extension of the line from 57th Street–Seventh Avenue. Service originally operated southward to Whitehall Street at the southern end of Manhattan. This station ceased to be the line's terminal with the extension of the line to Queensboro Plaza through the 60th Street Tunnel on August 1, 1920. An entrance leading from the BMT station to the Bloomingdale's store opened on the same day that the line was extended to Queens. This entrance measured deep and had five display windows.
1920s to 1960s The IRT station originally served local trains only. In Fiscal Year 1930, a crossunder under the local tracks was opened, connecting the southbound and northbound platforms. This passageway was funded by Bloomingdale's and was dedicated on November 11, 1930. A new entrance from the Lexington Avenue/59th Street station to Bloomingdale's flagship store was also built in late 1930 as part of an expansion of the store.
The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940, and the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. A transfer passageway between the BMT and IRT stations were placed inside fare control on July 1, 1948. Initially, only the southbound IRT local platform had a direct free transfer to the BMT platform. Later that year, an additional subway entrance was proposed as part of the construction of a building on the southeastern corner of Lexington Avenue and 59th Street. At the time, more than 15 million passengers entered the station annually. A direct transfer passageway connecting the northbound IRT local platform with the BMT platform opened on August 7, 1952. The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) began constructing five staircases between the IRT and BMT stations at Lexington Avenue/59th Street in May 1956, following the completion of the 60th Street Tunnel Connection in Queens, which allowed trains in the 60th Street Tunnel to run along the Queens Boulevard Line, in December 1955. An escalator connecting the IRT and BMT stations opened in September 1958.
To reduce crime, in 1965, the NYCTA began closing two of the station's entrances at night. In addition, as part of the construction of the 63rd Street lines, the NYCTA proposed constructing a three-block-long passageway with stores, which would connect the Lexington Avenue/59th Street station with a new Lexington Avenue station on the 63rd Street Line. Although the line received final approval in 1969 as part of the Program for Action, a wide-ranging expansion program for the New York City Subway system, the passageway was never built.
Construction of IRT express platforms