Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street station

New York City Subway station in Queens

The Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street station is a New York City Subway station complex served by the IRT Flushing Line and the IND Queens Boulevard Line. Located at the triangle of 74th Street, Broadway, and Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, it is served by the 7, E, and F trains at all times; the R train at all times except late nights; the M train weekdays during the day; and the <F> train during rush hours in the reverse peak direction. The complex consists of two stations: the elevated station at Broadway–74th Street, built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), and the underground IND station at Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue, built for the Independent Subway System (IND). The elevated station was built as part of the Dual Contracts and opened on April 21, 1917; the station was also served by the BRT and its successor, the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, until 1949. The IND station opened on August 19, 1933, and was the terminus of the Queens Boulevard Line until 1936. Escalators between the two stations were installed in the 1950s, and the complex was substantially rebuilt between 2000 and 2005. The IRT Flushing Line station has two side platforms and three tracks; rush hour express trains use the inner track to bypass the station. The IND Queens Boulevard Line station has two island platforms and four tracks. A third platform above the Queens Boulevard Line platforms was completed as part of the IND Second System but never opened. The station complex contains elevators, which make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. There is also an at grade bus terminal, known as the Victor A. Moore Bus Terminal, next to the station's main entrance at Broadway and Roosevelt Avenue. In , it was the busiest subway station in Queens and the busiest subway station in the system. Community leaders advocated for more Dual Contracts lines to be built in Queens to allow development there. The 74th Street station opened on April 21, 1917, as part of an extension of the line from Queensboro Plaza to 103rd Street–Corona Plaza. At the time, the station was known as Broadway. The opening of the line helped spur the development of Jackson Heights, Queens, which previously had been farmland. In 1923, the BMT started operating shuttle services along the Flushing Line, which terminated at Queensboro Plaza. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of "R type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The route from Times Square to Flushing became known as the 7.

The Queens Boulevard Line was one of the first built by the city owned Independent Subway System (IND), and was planned to stretch between the IND Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan and 178th Street and Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, with a stop at Roosevelt Avenue. The line was first proposed in 1925. Construction of the line was approved by the New York City Board of Estimate on October 4, 1928. As planned, Roosevelt Avenue was to be one of the Queens Boulevard Line's five express stops, as well as one of 22 total stops on the line between Seventh Avenue in Manhattan and 178th Street in Queens. Although the line ran along Queens Boulevard for much of its route, the segment in western Queens was diverted northward to serve Jackson Heights. The line was constructed using the cut and cover tunneling method. and Roosevelt Avenue was partially closed. Construction of the line between Manhattan and Jackson Heights was split into four phases; by late 1931, these phases were between 90% and 99% complete. Before the IND station opened, Bickford's leased a store within a two story building that housed one of the subway's entrances. The Roosevelt Avenue station opened on August 19, 1933, as the terminus of the first section of the line, which stretched from the connection to the Eighth Avenue Line at 50th Street. Three thousand people converged at the station's 73rd and 74th Street exits, hoping to be the first to ride. One real estate expert wrote that the station was "the only place in Queens where the interchange between the elevated and the subway system can be made at a common point". Initially, the line was served only by E trains, which ran local. In its first year, the IND station collected nearly two million fares, more than the IRT and BMT collected at the Broadway station. By 1938, the station recorded over five million annual entries. The construction of the new Roosevelt Avenue complex led to increased demand for housing in the area. It also inspired plans for an unbuilt shopping mall nearby, and real estate investors speculated that sales and rentals of real estate on Roosevelt Avenue would increase significantly. However, no large commercial developments were built around the station in the years after the IND station opened. The station was the Queens Boulevard Line's terminus from 1933 until an extension east to Union Turnpike opened on December 31, 1936. The E began making express stops on the line in 1937, and local GG trains began serving the Roosevelt Avenue station at the time. With the opening of the IND Sixth Avenue Line in 1940, F trains began running express along the Queens Boulevard Line west of 71st Avenue, stopping at the Roosevelt Avenue station. As part of the never completed IND Second System, announced in 1929, the Winfield Spur line would have diverged from the Queens Boulevard Line just east of the Roosevelt Avenue station. A second station was built for this line above the Queens Boulevard Line platforms; the Winfield Spur station was finished but never opened. asked the New York City Board of Estimate for permission to build a $375,000 bus terminal in his name near the station. When the Board of Estimate approved the project that December, Moore invited board members to see his musical Louisiana Purchase at the Imperial Theatre. Moore acquired all remaining lots on the block in February 1941 and began construction on the terminal that June, obtaining a $250,000 mortgage for the project. Nine businesses signed lease for the terminal in September, and the Victor Moore Arcade officially opened on December 11, 1941. It served as a hub for the operations of Triboro Coach, allowing subway passengers to transfer to and from buses for distant neighborhoods and for LaGuardia Airport,

As part of the unification of the New York City Subway system, free transfers between the BMT/IRT and IND stations commenced on July 1, 1948; initially, passengers were issued paper tickets. On October 17, 1949, the joint BMT/IRT operation of the Flushing Line ended, and the line became the responsibility of the IRT. In August 1951, the New York City Board of Transportation approved the installation of six escalators at the Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street station. The $965,000 contract called for one escalator between the IND mezzanine and either of the IND platforms; two escalators between the IND and IRT mezzanines; and one escalator between the IRT mezzanine and either of the IRT platforms. In 1956, the New York City Transit Authority announced that it would open a request for proposal for additional escalators between the IRT and IND stations. At the time, the station had six exits,efn|One exit through the arcade, two at the intersection of Broadway and 75th Street, one each at Broadway's intersections with 73rd and 74th Streets, and one at the intersection of 73rd Street and 37th Road. After the end of BMT/IRT dual service, the New York City Board of Transportation announced that the Flushing Line platforms would be lengthened to 11 IRT car lengths; the platforms were only able to fit nine 51 foot long IRT cars beforehand. The platforms at the 74th Street station were extended in 1955–1956 to accommodate 11 car trains. However, nine car trains continued to run on the 7 route until 1962, when they were extended to ten cars. With the opening of the 1964 New York World's Fair, trains were lengthened to eleven cars.

On May 2, 1970, an out of service train collided with another GG train in revenue service on the Queens Boulevard Line. The revenue service train was switching from the southbound express track to the local track (it had been rerouted around the out of service train). Two people died and 71 were injured in the worst subway collision since the 1928 Times Square derailment. Following the 1970 accident, New York Magazine highlighted the state of the subway system in a lengthy exposé, in which it concluded that the subway's condition was getting worse compared to previous years. To speed up passenger flow, dozens of platform conductors were assigned to direct crowds on the Queens Boulevard Line platforms during the late 1980s.

Triboro Coach leased the Victor Moore Arcade from Arnold Gumowitz for $1 a year until 1997. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) acquired the Victor Moore Arcade in March 1999, paying Gumowitz $9.5 million. Later that year, the MTA began buying out 25 merchants' leases within the arcade in preparation for a $90 million renovation of the station complex. The MTA planned to install four elevators, rebuild staircases, and erect the station's main entrance on the arcade's site. At the time, the station was the second busiest in Queens, but the bus terminal was too short to fit CNG powered buses. The MTA proposed hiring Vollmer Associates to design the station's renovation in late 1999, All merchants had moved out by May 2000. Advocacy group Straphangers Campaign conducted a poll the same year, in which riders ranked Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street station as the dirtiest among the city's 15 busiest stations. The MTA began restoring the bus terminal in early May 2001. The MTA approved a renovation of the station itself in September 2002; at the time, the project was slated to cost $87 million. Fox & Fowle and Vollmer Associates designed the project. The Flushing Line platforms and the bus terminal were completely rebuilt, and the canopies above the Flushing Line platforms were extended to cover the whole platform. at a total cost of $132 million. The renovation also involved adding of retail space, expanding the upper mezzanine on either side of 74th Street, and installing elevators. As part of the renovation, the MTA had removed the complex's payphones in April 2005, The MTA agreed to restore the phones that August after Sabini said a woman had died at the station because the lack of phones made it hard to contact paramedics. Local residents also complained that the MTA did not give them enough information about closures due to the ongoing renovation. to a design by Stantec. The Jackson Heights bus terminal opened on July 13, 2005.

In 2011, as part of a pilot program, the MTA installed an online interactive touchscreen kiosk called the "On The Go! Travel Station" at the Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street station. As part of a $11,2 million project, the MTA replaced two of the escalators connecting the IND and IRT mezzanines between July 2014 and early 2015. In late 2022, the MTA announced plans to replace three of the complex's elevators during 2023.

At 73rd Street and Broadway, on the north side of Roosevelt Avenue, a set of stairs from each of the IRT Flushing Line platforms lead down to a landing below the elevated structure. The only direct exit from the Flushing Line platforms is from the 74th Street mezzanine, which leads to the station building, with an additional side exit to the northeast corner of Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street. although there are track switches at either side to let express trains stop there in case of emergency or to allow transfers when work on a local track forces trains to run express. The station has two fare control areas at 73rd Street and two at 74th. The 74th Street mezzanine has a wooden floor with windscreens on the stairs, a booth, and a crossunder, with stairs to both the new station building and to the northeast corner of 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue. 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 blue tiles used at the Roosevelt Avenue station were also used at all local stations between Roosevelt Avenue and 71st Avenue. The platforms' I beam columns are painted blue, but some columns are encased in concrete and covered with white tiles.

Along the ramp leading to the southeastern fare control, there is an unused and uncompleted Roosevelt Avenue terminal station for the IND Second System directly above the Manhattan bound platform. This terminal has an island platform with a trackway on each side. There are no rails in the trackbeds, but tiles depicting the station name on the tile walls are present. The signs hanging over the platform, however, are blank. East of the station lies a long, dark section of a 3 block long tunnel with provisions for a crossover and a ramp down to the Manhattan bound local track of the active mainline below. The unused tunnel has about 750 feet (229 m) of trackway. Along these trackways, trains from the lower level tracks can be seen. The never used upper level platform is around 500 feet (152 m), only long enough for eight 60 feet (18 m) cars rather than the IND maximum of 10. There is a trackway just east of Roosevelt Avenue that diverges away from the Manhattan bound local track. The trackway ramps up to the same level as the two trackways coming from the never used Roosevelt Avenue Terminal, At the end of the unused tunnel there is an emergency exit that opens out to the south side of Broadway across the street from Elmhurst Hospital Center. The four track subway running south was a plan for a line along the Long Island Rail Road right of way to Garfield Avenue and 65th Place. The line, called the Winfield Spur, would have turned along 65th Place to Fresh Pond Road and then along Fresh Pond Road to Cypress Hills Street. The line would have merged with the Myrtle–Central Avenues Line to the Rockaways proposed in 1929. All four trackways end at a concrete wall where they begin to diverge from the excavation for the existing line.