91st Street station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)

91st Street station prior to opening in 1904

Planning for the city's first subway line dates to the Rapid Transit Act, authorized by the New York State Legislature in 1894.[2]^:139–140 The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, chief engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission. It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx.[3]^:3 A plan was formally adopted in 1897, and legal challenges were resolved near the end of 1899.[2]^:148 The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900,[4] in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line.[2]^:182 In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations.[3]^:4 Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.[2]^:182

The 91st Street station was constructed as part of the IRT's West Side Line (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line) from 82nd Street to 104th Street, for which work had begun on August 22, 1900. Work for that section had been awarded to William Bradley.[4] The 91st Street station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from City Hall to 145th Street on the West Side Branch.[2]^:186[1]

Street grading of 91st Street

After the initial system was completed in 1908,[5] the station was served by local 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). West Side local trains had their southern terminus at City Hall during rush hours and South Ferry at other times, and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street. East Side local trains ran from City Hall to Lenox Avenue (145th Street).[6] In 1918, the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line opened south of Times Square–42nd Street, thereby dividing the original line into an "H" system, and all local trains were sent to South Ferry.[7]

In 1909, to address overcrowding, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening platforms at stations along the original IRT subway.[8]^:168 On January 18, 1910, a modification was made to Contracts 1 and 2 to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million (equivalent to $41.2 million in 2019) spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 (equivalent to $13,719,643 in 2019) was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent.[9]^:15 Platforms at local stations, such as the 91st Street station, were lengthened by between 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 m). Both platforms were extended to the north and south.[9]^:111

The station's decline commenced in the late 1940s when platforms on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line from 103rd Street to 238th Street were lengthened to 514 feet (157 m) to allow trains of ten 51.4-foot-long (15.7 m) cars to stop at these stations; previously, platforms could only accommodate six-car local trains. The platform extensions were opened in stages through 1948.[10][11] The IRT routes were given numbered designations with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock. The first such fleet, the R12, was put into service in 1948.[12] The Broadway/West Side route became known as the 1 and the Lenox Avenue route as the 3.[13]

A new service pattern was implemented on the line during peak hours in the late 1950s, removing a rush-hour service bottleneck north of 96th Street by rerouting local trains up the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street and express trains to the Bronx or 145th Street via the IRT Lenox Avenue Line. On February 6, 1959, all Broadway trains became locals, and all Lenox Avenue trains became expresses, eliminating the need to switch tracks.[14][15][16] The rush-hour service could not be implemented until the platform extensions at stations on the line were completed. The original IRT stations north of Times Square could only fit five- or six-car trains. By 1958, the platform extensions at the local stations were nearly completed, but there were more problems with the platform extensions at the two express stations, 72nd Street and 96th Street. At 72nd Street, the track layout was simply changed, but at 96th Street, the local tracks and the outside walls had to be moved. A new mezzanine with stairways to the street was built between West 93rd Street and West 94th Street. The 86th Street and 96th Street stations had their platforms extended in order to accommodate 10-car trains. The 91st Street station could not have its platforms extended because they would already be too close to the other two stations. It was closed on February 2, 1959.[17][18][19] Advertisements from 1959 persisted for several years before the station walls were graffitied over.[19]