City Hall was the ceremonial terminal of the first subway project in New York, the place where the mayor could show off the subway built with the people's money to benefit the greatest city in the country. Not at all characteristic of the first subway, it has a sharply curved platform, a Guastavino tile arched ceiling, skylights (blackened in World War II), and plaques praising the work and those involved. The official start of construction took place on 24 March 1900 at the front steps of City Hall, on the site of the station.
Unfortunately, for all that, it was never an important station. It was located on the turning loop for local trains from uptown, and both those and the express trains could be easily taken at the very nearby Brooklyn Bridge station. The curve was noisy, and the gaps it left at the platform were unsafe. The station was closed at night, when the local trains ran to South Ferry loop instead. When it was open, it was an entrance only.
In its last year, a peak year for subway travel, only 600 people a day used it, a small number in New York, and they paid their fares by ticket in a chopper, because the station had never even had turnstiles installed.
The loop track is of course still very much in use. Every run of the 6 train terminating at Brooklyn Bridge uses the loop to run around to the uptown local track.
In April 1995 it was announced that federal grant money was to be sought to restore City Hall station and open it as a branch of the Transit Museum, contingent on funding. It was expected it would be open by late 1997. The track around the loop was reclassed from yard track to mainline, which meant the public could be allowed to ride around and see the station without special permission. The commemorative plaques originally in the station, which had been moved to Brooklyn Bridge station by 1962, were taken back to City Hall and reinstalled in their original positions in 1996. In late 1998, the plans were quietly cancelled, the public were prohibited from riding around the loop, and the Transit Museum's tours of other closed areas were also cancelled.
