[4][5] On December 9, 1924, the New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) gave preliminary approval for the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line.

[16] The station was renovated in 1998–2000, in coordination with the building of the new Hayden Planetarium, within the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

[18] A request for proposals was put out on May 18, 2023 for the contract for a project bundle to make 13 stations accessible, including 81st Street.

[25] In 1976, with funding from the Exxon Corporation, this station, as well as three others citywide, received new "artfully humorous graffiti" murals and artwork.

[27] Local designer Mayers and Schiff received $5,000 to add murals of dinosaurs such as "Thesaurus Rex, the dinosaur that had a vocabulary of a thousand words" and "Elongatomus, an elongated critter that stretched from coast to coast whose pelvic remains support a highway interchange in Missouri.

"[27] As part of the 1998–2000 station renovation, a program of tile mosaics was undertaken, covering the stairs and platforms, extending to floor inlays.

[28] Under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s Arts for Transit program, a mixed-media installation was created in 2000.

[17][28][29][30] Entitled "For Want of a Nail",[29] named after the old proverb, it addresses the interconnections of entities that are as vast as a galaxy and as small as a single cell.

Using ceramic tile, glass tile, glass mosaic, bronze relief, and granite as primary materials, the design team depicted the evolution of extinct, existing, and endangered life forms, from single-celled organisms to the towering T. rex dinosaur.