История строительства станции метро в Куинсе

New York City Subway station in Queens
The first section of the line opened on August 19, 1933, from the connection to the Eighth Avenue Line at 50th Street to Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. Later that year, a $23 million loan was approved to finance the remainder of the line, along with other IND lines. The remainder of the line was built by the Public Works Administration. In summer 1933 work on this station and 169th Street were completed, far ahead of schedule. Construction was further delayed due to a strike in 1935, instigated by electricians opposing wages paid by the General Railway Signal Company. In August 1936, tracks were installed all the way to 178th Street, and the stations to Union Turnpike were completed. However, the stops to the east, including Van Wyck Boulevard, still needed to be tiled and did not have stairways, turnstiles and lighting installed. In addition, a new tunnel roof and new side supports had to be constructed. A 3.5 mile (6 km) extension from Roosevelt Avenue to Kew Gardens opened on December 31, 1936. In March 1937, the extension to 169th Street was expected to be opened on May 1, requiring work to be finished by April 3, and fully approved and tested by April 20. As of this point, minor station work remained, including the installation of light bulbs, with the only major work left to be completed being the final of track in the 169th Street terminal. The extension to Hillside Avenue and 178th Street, with a terminal station at 169th Street, opened as planned on April 24, 1937. Service was initially provided by E trains, which began making express stops from 71st–Continental Avenues to Queens Plaza during rush hours on the same date, and by EE local trains during non rush hours. The express service operated between approximately 6:30 and 10:30 a. m. and from 3:00 p. m. to 7:00 p. m., and ran every three to five minutes. This extension was celebrated with a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Parsons Boulevard station and with a parade along Hillside Avenue. On December 15, 1940, trains began running via the newly opened IND Sixth Avenue Line and along the Queens Boulevard Line's express tracks; they skipped the Van Wyck Boulevard station.

In 1953, the platforms at several IND stations were lengthened to allow eleven car trains; originally, service was provided with ten car trains. The extra car increased the total carrying capacity by 4,000 passengers. The operation of eleven car trains ended in 1958 because of operational difficulties. The signal blocks, especially in Manhattan, were too short to accommodate the longer trains, and the motormen had a very small margin of error to properly platform the train. It was found that operating ten car trains allowed for two additional trains per hour to be scheduled. In early 1982, in an attempt to cover up empty advertising panels that had been vandalized, students at the nearby PS 117 painted 14 murals at the Van Wyck Boulevard station. After the murals themselves were destroyed by June 1982, the students reinstalled the murals in 1985 and covered them with Plexiglas. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) provided funding for the newer murals as part of its Adopt a Station program.

Before the Archer Avenue lines opened on December 11, 1988, all Queens Boulevard express trains (E and F trains) ran to 179th Street. The E ran express east of 71st Avenue during rush hours only, and the F ran local east of 71st Avenue. However, some E trains continued to run from 179th Street as expresses during the morning rush hour. Service at local stations, such as Briarwood–Van Wyck Boulevard, was replaced by the R, which was extended to 179th Street from Continental Avenue. The R extension allowed F trains to continue running express to 179th Street. The changes in subway service angered riders at local stations east of 71st Avenue because they lost direct Queens Boulevard Express service. Local elected officials pressured the MTA to eliminate all local service at these stations. On September 30, 1990, the R was cut back to 71st Avenue outside of rush hours. Local service to 179th Street was replaced by F trains, which provided Queens Boulevard Express service, during middays, evenings, and weekends, and local G service during late nights. In 1992, the MTA decided to have F trains run local east of 71st Avenue on a six month trial basis to replace R service, which would be cut back to 71st Avenue at all times. The test started on October 26, 1992, and was implemented on a permanent basis six months later, eliminating express service along Hillside Avenue.

The station's exits were rebuilt during the 2010s as part of the Kew Gardens Interchange reconstruction project, which includes replacement of the Queens Boulevard overpass over Van Wyck Expressway. Ecco won the contract for reconstructing the station's entrance at a cost of $9.9 million. In 2011, the north entrance was demolished as part of the interchange reconstruction project, leaving the southern exit bordering Maple Grove Cemetery as the sole entrance and exit. A new entrance was built next to Archbishop Molloy High School on Main Street, replacing an exit that had been closed since 2010. Another entrance was built on the south side of Queens Boulevard between the Van Wyck Expressway's service and main roads, across from Maple Grove Cemetery. The project started in 2010 and was originally supposed to have been completed by 2016, with a new elevator entrance and rebuilt, widened mezzanine corridors. The opening of the new Main Street exit was subsequently pushed forward to February 2014, then back again to May 2014. Work on the elevator was to begin after the new entrance opened; the elevator was to be complete by late 2014 or early 2015. A new staircase entrance, on the northwest corner of Queens Boulevard and Main Street, was opened in December 2014. After the new Main Street entrance opened, the MTA added landscaping, pavement, and sidewalks next to the entrance, and it began constructing an elevator entrance. but the MTA also missed this deadline. The elevator finally opened in May 2017.

This local station, which is located directly under the Van Wyck Expressway's southbound service road, has four tracks and two side platforms. The E uses the two center tracks to bypass this station weekdays (Manhattan bound from approximately 6:00 a. m. to 6:30 p. m., Jamaica bound from 7:30 a. m. to 8:00 p. m.). The next stop to the west is Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike. The next stop to the east is Sutphin Boulevard station for trains and Jamaica–Van Wyck for trains. The platforms have Slate blue I beam columns, a Jasmine yellow tile trim with black borders, and name tablets reading "VAN WYCK BLVD." in white sans serif lettering on a black background with a Jasmine yellow border. Small panels reading "BRIARWOOD" in white Copperplate font are centered underneath each name tablet; they were placed over the original directional exit tiling (in place at other IND stations) that pointed to Queens Boulevard or 85th Avenue, the latter of which has never existed. The small tile captions running below the trim line retain the original "VAN WYCK" name. The tile band is part of a color coded tile system used throughout the IND. The tile colors were designed to facilitate navigation for travelers going away from Lower Manhattan. As such, a different tile color is used at , the next express station to the east. The yellow tiles used at the Briarwood station were also used at , the next express station to the west, and , the only other local station between Union Turnpike and Parsons Boulevard. The I beam piers on the platforms are located every 15 feet (5 m) and support girders above the platforms. The roof girders are also connected to columns in the walls adjoining each platform. The full length mezzanine is directly above the platforms; however the northern half was closed, and the station mezzanine has hosted the NYPD Transit Bureau's District 20 station house since the mid 1990s. The open southern half is separated into three sections with chain link fences; fare control is in the middle due to the need to have a pedestrian underpass under Queens Boulevard. As a result, there are no free transfers between directions. The tunnel is covered by a U shaped trough that contains utility pipes and wires. The outer walls of this trough are composed of columns, spaced approximately every 5 feet (2 m) with concrete infill between them. There is a gap between the tunnel wall and the platform wall, which is made of thick brick covered over by a tiled finish. The columns between the tracks are also spaced every 5 feet (2 m), with no infill. Just to the compass south (railroad north) of this station, the IND Archer Avenue Line splits from the Queens Boulevard Line in a flying junction; trains to/from the Archer Avenue line can serve the station as local trains or bypass it as express trains. At the split, the Archer Avenue tracks split from both pairs of express and local Queens Boulevard tracks. The connection uses trackways that were constructed at the same time as the station, part of the section of the Queens Boulevard Line from Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike to 169th Street. The current Archer Avenue plans emerged in the 1960s under the city and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s Program for Action. It was conceived as an expansion of Queens Boulevard service to a "Southeast Queens" line along the right of way of the Long Island Rail Road Atlantic Branch towards Locust Manor; a two track spur from the Queens Boulevard Line would use the original Van Wyck Boulevard bellmouths. However, the line was only completed to Jamaica Center–Parsons/Archer, and opened several years behind schedule in 1988. There are punch boxes on the Jamaica bound track of this station to allow trains to go to either the Hillside Avenue or Archer Avenue lines.

The station was originally known as Van Wyck Boulevard, for the wide thoroughfare that existed when the station opened. The Van Wyck Expressway was built over the boulevard in 1949. As early as 1997, the Briarwood Community Association had been pushing to rename the station to "Briarwood" or "Briarwood–Van Wyck" since it better reflected the fact that the station served the Briarwood neighborhood. Furthermore, the existing name memorialized Robert Anderson Van Wyck, the first mayor of the City of Greater New York, who had been accused of corruption. Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer supported the proposed renaming. The name was changed to Briarwood–Van Wyck Boulevard in 1998 to avoid confusion with Jamaica–Van Wyck on the IND Archer Avenue Line. The mosaic tilework remained unchanged. In August 2014, it was announced that the station would be renamed Briarwood. The station was formally renamed on April 17, 2015.

In the 1988 comedy film Coming to America, Eddie Murphy's character, Akeem, tries to persuade his love interest to marry him and go to Zamunda, a fictional kingdom in Africa. He follows her onto the Briarwood station. When Akeem jumps the turnstile, "Van Wyck Boulevard" can be seen in the background above the token booth. They board the train which next stops at the Sutphin Boulevard station where she gets off. This scene, however, was actually shot at the unused platform and tracks of Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets station in Brooklyn.