Fifth Avenue–59th Street station

New York City Subway station in Manhattan

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company 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 Interborough Rapid Transit Company (which operated the first subway and four elevated lines in Manhattan) came to an agreement, and sent a report to the New York City Board of Estimate on June 5, 1911. The line along Broadway to 59th Street was assigned to the BRT, while the IRT obtained the Lexington Avenue line, connecting with its existing route at Grand Central–42nd Street. Construction began on Lexington Avenue on July 31, and on Broadway the next year. The Dual Contracts, two operating contracts between the city and the BMT and IRT, were adopted on March 4, 1913. The original plan there was to build a pair of single track tunnels under 59th and 60th Streets, rising onto the Queensboro Bridge and crossing the East River to Queens, with stations at Fifth and Lexington Avenues. 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. In 1915, the Public Service Commission approved a request from the New York City Board of Estimate to place both tracks under 60th Street and cross the East River in the 60th Street Tunnel. 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 part of an extension of the Broadway Line from 57th Street–Seventh Avenue to Lexington Avenue/59th Street. Service originally operated northward to Lexington Avenue and southward to Whitehall Street at the southern end of Manhattan.

The station was operated by the BMT until the city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940. This station was overhauled in the late 1970s. The MTA fixed the station's structure and overall appearance, replacing the original wall tiles, old signs, and incandescent lighting with 1970s modern look wall tile band and tablet mosaics, signs and fluorescent lights. It also fixed staircases and platform edges. In 2002, the station received a major overhaul. It received state of art repairs as well as an upgrade of the station for ADA compliance and restoration the original late 1910s tiling. The MTA repaired the staircases, re tiling for the walls, installed new tiling on the floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, and installed ADA yellow safety threads along the platform edges, new signs, and new track beds in both directions.

The full time side of the station at the north end, at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue, has three street staircases, one carved into the outer perimeter of Central Park (northwestern corner of that intersection) and the other two on either eastern corner of the intersection. Despite its name, the station has no exit at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.