Нью-Йорк метросының 125-ші көше стансасының тарихы

New York City Subway station in Manhattan

In May 1912, it was decided to modify the planned layout of the station from three tracks and two island platforms on each level, to two tracks and one island platform per level, saving $1.25 million. In 1913, as part of the Dual Contracts, which were signed on March 19, 1913, the Public Service Commission planned to split the original Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) system from looking like a "Z" system (as seen on a map) to an H shaped system. The original system would be split 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. The 125th Street station opened on July 17, 1918, as part of the extension of the original subway up Lexington Avenue to 125th Street and into the Bronx. Initially, service was provided only as a shuttle on the local tracks of the Lexington Avenue Line starting at Grand Central, continuing past this station and under the Harlem River to 167th Street on the IRT Jerome Avenue Line. 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. Express service began on this date. The cost of the extension from Grand Central was $58 million. The opening of this station resulted in development of the surrounding neighborhood of East Harlem.

The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. In 1952 or 1953, a public address system was installed at this station, providing information to passengers and train crews. In late 1959, contracts were awarded to extend the platforms at Bowling Green, Wall Street, Fulton Street, Canal Street, Spring Street, Bleecker Street, Astor Place, Grand Central, 86th Street and 125th Street to to accommodate ten car trains. In 1981, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority listed the station among the 69 most deteriorated stations in the subway system. The station's elevators were installed in November 1989, making the station one of the earliest to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This station was renovated in 2005. In July 2023, as part of a pilot program to deter assaults on New York City Transit staff, the MTA painted "no standing zones" on the 125th Street station's platforms near the centers of each train.

A station at Lexington Avenue and 125th Street was not on the original Second Avenue Subway proposed as part of the New York City Transit Authority's 1968 Program for Action; instead, a Second Avenue Subway station would be built at 126th Street and Second Avenue. The line was to be built in two phases—the first phase from 126th to 34th Streets, the second phase from 34th to Whitehall Streets. In March 2007, plans for the construction of the Second Avenue Subway were revived. The line's first phase, the "first major expansion" to the New York City Subway in more than a half century, included three stations in total and cost $4.45 to $4.5 billion, spanning from 105th Street and Second Avenue to 63rd Street and Third Avenue. Phase 1 opened on January 1, 2017, with the line's northern terminal at 96th Street. The second phase, between 125th and 96th Streets, was allocated $525 million in the MTA's 2015–2019 Capital Plan for planning, design, environmental studies, and utility relocation. This phase will complete the project's East Harlem section. The alignment will run under Second Avenue to 124th Street, before turning west on 125th Street. On October 18, 2016, the de Blasio administration announced a rezoning plan for East Harlem. One of the three Special Transit Land Use (TA) districts is for the area of the 125th Street station. On November 21, 2016, the MTA requested that the Phase 2 project be entered into the Project Development phase under the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts program. On December 15, several elected officials for the area announced that they were seeking $6 billion of funding for Phase 2 of the line, including $2 billion from the federal government. These officials wished to secure funding from the presidential administration of Barack Obama before Obama's term ended on January 20, 2017. In their request for funding, they cited that they wanted to avoid an uncertain response from the administration of Donald Trump and start construction on Phase 2 as soon as possible. Under the approved plan, the MTA would complete an environmental reevaluation by 2018, receive funding by 2020, and open Phase 2 between 2027 and 2029. In January 2017, it was announced that Phases 2 and 3, which are expected to cost up to a combined $14.2 billion, were on the Trump administration's priority list of 50 most important transportation projects nationwide.

In July 2018, the MTA released a supplemental environmental assessment for Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway. The updated report indicated that the 125th Street station would be relocated about 118 feet (36 m) west and 20 feet (6 m) below what had been proposed in the 2004 FEIS, in order to reduce impacts on nearby buildings. The proposed three track station was reduced to two tracks. The modification would reduce flexibility, but would allow the section under 125th Street to be mined, rather than being constructed as cut and cover, thereby reducing impacts on nearby buildings. Simulations showed that a two track layout could support the same level of service that the three track layout could have provided: 28 trains per hour. To make up for the loss of the track, the tail tracks west of the station would be lengthened. and switches to the east of the platforms. The July 2018 plans call for two tracks and one island platform, with switches both to the west and the east. The tail tracks would extend to Lenox Avenue to allow for six trains to be stored, three per track. Extra transfer capacity to the existing Lexington Avenue Line station would be provided as part of the construction of the Harlem–125th Street terminal. The center's opening was delayed to September 18, 2017.

The station is mentioned by Lou Reed in his 1967 song "I'm Waiting for the Man", performed with The Velvet Underground, in which he describes traveling to Harlem to purchase heroin: "Up to Lexington / One two five / Feeling sick and dirty / More dead than alive."