125th Street

The 125th Street station (referred to on some strip maps as 125th Street–Lenox Avenue) is a station on the IRT Lenox Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of 125th Street (also known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard) and Lenox Avenue (also known as Malcolm X Boulevard) in Harlem, it is served by the 2 and 3 trains at all times. The 125th Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. Construction on the tunnel segment that includes the 125th Street station started on October 2 of the same year. The station opened on November 23, 1904. The station platforms were lengthened in 1910. The 125th Street station contains two side platforms and two tracks. The station was built with tile and mosaic decorations. The platforms contain exits to Lenox Avenue's intersection with 125th Street and are not connected to each other within fare control.

Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. 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. A plan was formally adopted in 1897, and legal challenges were resolved near the end of 1899. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway. The 125th Street station was constructed as part of the IRT's East Side Branch (now the Lenox Avenue Line). Farrell & Hopper began buildi

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