After a series of delays involving escalator, elevator, and fire and safety systems, the station finally opened on September 13, 2015.

[4] In response to the City Planning Commission's 1993 proposal to improve access to the Manhattan Central Business District,[5] the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) began exploring the possibility of an extension of the IRT Flushing Line to New Jersey.

[6] His December 12, 2006, address to the New York League of Conservation Voters noted that in November 2006, the government began issuing bonds to fund the extension of the 7 subway to Eleventh Avenue and 34th Street.

[18][19] After excavating the new terminal's shell and creating the first 1,000 feet (300 m) of tunnel using the drill-and-blast method, S3 placed two tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) in the ground to dig the remaining 6,000 feet (1,800 m); as it dug, each TBM placed precast concrete liner segments to create the tunnel interior.

[26] On December 20, 2013, Bloomberg took a ceremonial ride on a train to the nearly complete station, celebrating a part of his legacy as mayor, during a press tour of the extension.

When London was chosen for the Olympics, the opening date was pushed to December 2013; the Tenth Avenue station was dropped from construction plans soon after.

[35] Michael Horodniceanu, chief of MTA Construction Company, told The New York Times in January 2014 that complications in the installation of the inclined elevator would likely cause a further delay of about three months, bringing the opening date to very late summer or early fall of 2014,[36] or to November 2014.

[41] Then, in May 2014, the opening was delayed again to install the inclined elevators, as they had originally failed a factory test in Como Province, Italy.

[46] On November 17, it was confirmed that February 24 would be the opening date for the station; new signs and the southern entrance's canopy started to be erected.

[47] However, just a month later, the MTA stated that it was unable to open the subway extension for service until April to July 2015, due to the failure to get the inclined elevators to work properly.

[52] The MTA made another announcement, on March 24, 2015, saying that the station's opening would be delayed again to summer 2015, due to more problems with the fire and security systems.

In addition, third rails, public service announcement systems, ventilation fans, escalators, and elevators would need to be tested.

[61] The station opened on September 13, 2015, at 1:00 p.m., in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, U.S.

[66] Earlier that day, the New York Post reported on signal problems in the brand-new tunnels around the station,[67] while riders complained about the delays on Twitter and Reddit.

[68] A The Wall Street Journal commentator remarked that "it's only a matter of months (make that weeks) before the gleaming station ... is pockmarked with chewing-gum spots, urban scrawl and litter.

[73] The MTA board called these issues "unacceptable" and the contractor responsible for waterproofing the station spent $3 million to fix them.

[86][84] On the lower mezzanine, the architects used high ceilings and convex railings to make the station seem bigger, thus improving passenger flow.

The main station entrance and ventilation building consists of four escalators and an elevator on the west side of Hudson Boulevard between 33rd and 34th Streets.

[101] The secondary entrance consists of escalators on the southwest corner of Hudson Boulevard East and 35th Street,[20] and opened on Labor Day 2018.

[105] Another plan called for an entrance at the southwest corner of Eleventh Avenue and 36th Street to serve the Javits Center directly.

[110] However, plans for screen doors in New York City Subway stations were dropped in 2012, in part because of concerns over cost and maintenance.

The station includes displays that accommodate the future inclusion of "countdown clocks" indicating the time until the next train, as well as Help Point emergency intercoms and in-station travel planners.

[20] As part of the MTA's "Arts for Transit" program, three mosaics by Xenobia Bailey, which total approximately 2,788 square feet (259.0 m2), were installed in three locations within the station.

One Newsweek writer observed that while the station was "very clean but also a little antiseptic", "cool", and "efficient", it was also "lacking all character" with its austere design.

[48] The use of inclined elevators was intended to provide wheelchair-using patrons with a shorter, easier path to the train platform as well as to reduce tunneling costs.

Maspero Elevatori assembled the elevators in Italy, and they failed an operational test there, prior to being shipped to the United States.

[42] The MTA said the manufacturer chose to use American subcontractors in place of local Italian suppliers after reading the specifications the transit agency submitted.

[20][27][109] The station is built to handle an even higher capacity of 40,000 passengers per hour during peak times and events at the Javits Center.

[144] Mitchell Moss, director of New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, states that the development of Hudson Yards, and the related subway extension, were among the benefits of the 2012 Olympic bid, saying that "the #7 Extension will be one of the largest expansions of the New York City transit system in decades and one of the most significant in terms of its potential impact.

[145] Kenneth T. Jackson, editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City, described the extension as "very important",[132] but Lois Weiss of Bisnow wrote that the potential number of workers at Hudson Yards could overburden the station's capacity and nearby buses.