When the City Hall station was made, in 1902 it was designed to be the showpiece of the new New York subway. This station is unusually elegant in architectural style, and is unique among the original stations, employing Romanesque Revival architecture.

The station served for 41 years and in 1945 the City Hall station got closed, leaving marvelous structure for no one to enjoy it. The reason for the closure were the new type of trains which were longer than earlier models. City Hall station, built on a tight curve, would have been difficult to lengthen, and it was also quite close to the far busier Brooklyn Bridge station. In addition, the new, longer trains had center doors in each car, which were an unsafe distance from the platform edge.

So the station got abandoned but there is still a way to see this famous and beautiful architectural glimpse at the city's past. If you keep riding the 6 train after its final Brooklyn Bridge stop as it travels around the loop to head back uptown, you can see the City Hall station.