{"nrhp_refnum":"04001022","name":"Borough Hall Subway Station (IRT)","other_names":[],"category":"structure","location":{"address":"Jct. of Joralemon, Court and Adams Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brooklyn","county":"Brooklyn","state":"NY","lat":40.69241501600004,"lon":-73.99040345999998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2004-09-17","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Transportation","Architecture","Art","Engineering","Community Planning and Development","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An underground subway station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line in downtown Brooklyn, running east-west along Joralemon Street between Court and Adams Streets. It was completed in 1908 under IRT Contract 2.","why_significant":"The station was the first completed in Brooklyn and is tied to the 1908 subway link between Brooklyn and Manhattan. It is significant for transportation, community development and social history (Criterion A), and for its engineering, architecture and art (Criterion C). It retains original decorative tilework, faience plaques and two rare cast iron entrance hoods.","narrative":"Borough Hall Station is an underground subway stop in downtown Brooklyn, opened in 1908 as part of the Interborough Rapid Transit system's Contract 2 extension. Built by the cut-and-cover method, it has side platforms and an upper mezzanine, with a steel frame, concrete walls and brick-lined interiors. Engineer William Barclay Parsons handled the structure, while architects Heins & LaFarge designed the finishes in a Beaux-Arts manner influenced by the City Beautiful movement. Original glass tile, marble wainscoting, mosaic name tablets and faience plaques bearing the letters BH survive, along with bronze plaques marking the first subway link between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Two cast iron entrance hoods stamped 1907 are one of only two such sets left in the system. The station was the first finished in Brooklyn and served the borough's civic center, helping connect it to Manhattan after Brooklyn became a borough of New York in 1898.","period_of_significance":"1908","architect_builder":"Parsons, William Barclay (engineer); Heins, George L. and LaFarge, Christopher G. (architects)","architectural_style":"Late 19th & 20th Century Revivals/Beaux-Arts","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still in transportation use. Some glass tile is damaged or spalled, parts of the uptown platform walls are covered in modern tile, and later platform extensions lie outside the nominated boundary.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:53.470415-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/04001022.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001022/736fce0a42-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001022/736fce0a42-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"GeneralPunger","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRT_Broadway-Seventh_Borough_Hall_Northbound_Platform.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">GeneralPunger</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRT_Broadway-Seventh_Borough_Hall_Northbound_Platform.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75313349","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borough_Hall/Court_Street_station","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2612210"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/brooklyn/borough-hall-subway-station-irt-04001022/"}