An early attempt at a subway system included the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company. The subway was only located in the vicinity of the Rogers Peet Building along Broadway between Warren and Murray Streets. The line had only one car and one station beneath the aforementioned building. With no support for the system from Mayor William Tweed, the line had limited use and ran only between 1870 and 1873 before being abandoned and sealed. The line was rediscovered during construction of the City Hall Station along the BMT Broadway Line in 1912.[1]
Interborough Rapid Transit built the first subway in 1904. The line consisted of what is today the IRT Lexington Avenue Line south of 42nd Street, the 42nd Street Shuttle and the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line between 42nd and 145th Streets. The line was extended less than a month later to 157th Street, and the Lenox Avenue Spur was also built northeast of 96th Street, with its spur to the IRT White Plains Road Line in the Bronx. The line would be expanded again to 221st Street in 1906, and finally Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx in 1908. In the 1910s and 1920s, the Dual Contracts brought expansion and improvements on subways and els for both the IRT and BRT in four of the five boroughs of the city. In the case of Manhattan, it converted the original line into the "H system" which brought the Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line south of 42nd Street to South Ferry, with a spur to Downtown Brooklyn via the Clark Street Tunnel, and the Lexington Avenue Line north of 42nd Street through 125th Street and the Lexington Avenue Tunnel into the Jerome Avenue and Pelham lines in the Bronx. It also helped extend the IRT Flushing Line to Times Square, created the BMT Nassau Street Line, the BMT Broadway Line, a subway under 14th Street leading to the Canarsie Line in Brooklyn, a spur of the 2nd Avenue el across the Queensboro Bridge into Long Island City, and an extension of the 9th Avenue El between the Polo Grounds via the Putnam Railroad Bridge, leading to the Jerome Avenue Line at 164th Street near Yankee Stadium.
Eventually, some growing disdain for the noise of the els, and the fact that the subways were rendering them obsolete lead to their closure. The Sixth Avenue El was closed in 1938, the Second Avenue el closed north of 59th Street in 1940 and north of Chatham Square in 1942. The Ninth Avenue el closed in 1940, except for the segment northeast of 155th Street when it became the southern terminus of the Polo Grounds Shuttle until 1958. The Third Avenue el closed in 1955 but remained opened in the Bronx until 1973. The newest subway lines to be built were the 63rd Street Lines in 1989 to Roosevelt Island and Long Island City, and the western extension of the IRT Flushing Line to 34th Street, near Hudson Yards, on September 13, 2015. The first phase of the IND Second Avenue Line, which was planned as far back as 1919, opened in 2017, with provisions for future expansion south to Hanover Square and north to 125th Street.
There are 151 New York City Subway stations in Manhattan,[^ 1] per the official count of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA); of these, 32 are express-local stations.[^ 2][^ 3] If the 18 station complexes[^ 4] are counted as one station each, the number of stations is 121. In the table below, lines with colors next to them indicate trunk lines, which determine the colors that are used for services' route bullets and diamonds. The opening date refers to the opening of the first section of track for the line. In the "division" column, the current division is followed by the original division in parentheses.
30 (9 express-local stations,[^ 2] 7 part of station complexes, 1 shared with Concourse Line, 1 shared with Queens Boulevard Line, 1 shared with Sixth Avenue Line)
The Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal stations, despite being a single complex, have their own articles. In addition, the 42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station has its own article, and is a separate complex from the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal complex, although the complexes are connected within fare control during the daytime.
Station service legend
Stops all times
Stops all times except late nights
Stops late nights only
Stops weekdays during the day
Stops all times except rush hours in the peak direction
Stops all times except nights and rush hours in the peak direction
Transfer stations either between local and express services or that involve the terminus of a service on the same line; may also be part of a station complex as defined above
***
Multi-level or adjacent-platform transfer stations on different lines considered to be one station as classified by the MTA
^There are 154 stations if one is to use MTA counting standards, but the MTA only lists 151 stations in Manhattan. It is to be assumed that two complexes, with two stations each, were both counted as one station during the official count. Several station complexes are counted as one station by both MTA and international standards.
^ abcThe Canal Street BMT Broadway Line stations and the Chambers Street–World Trade Center express and local stations are not included in the counts of express-local stations because the MTA classifies each set of stations as separate stations.
^Although the Second Avenue Subway opened on January 1, 2017, the single station on the BMT 63rd Street Line had exclusively served IND trains since 1989. Before 2017, regular service had operated on the line between 1998 and 1999.
^ abIn both of the stations named "34th Street–Penn Station," the single inner island platform for express trains is separated from the two outer side platforms for local trains. Transfers between local and express trains can be done by walking through a crossunder, but it is more convenient to do so at other adjacent stations. The two sets of stations do not have a free connection with each other and do not form a station complex.
^ abThe BMT Broadway Line at Canal Street splits into the Main Line along Broadway and the Manhattan Bridge Line along Canal Street, creating two sets of platforms. The latter station opened earlier and was originally named "Broadway." Therefore, the MTA defines the platforms as two separate stations.