Located at the intersection of 96th Street and Broadway in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan, it is served by the 1, 2, and 3 trains at all times.

The 96th Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900.

The head house contains elevators, which make the station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

[4]: 21  However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act.

It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx.

[4]: 161 The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900,[6] under which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line.

[5]: 4  Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.

In April 1907, the IRT submitted a report to the RTC, proposing to alleviate the congestion by building extra tracks.

[13] Accordingly, in December 1908, city officials announced they would introduce speed-control signals, making the 96th Street Improvement unnecessary.

[15] The first subway line was extended several times, ultimately reaching its full length in 1908, when the northernmost section to the Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street station opened.

[20]: 106  To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway.

[21]: 168  As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains.

[21]: 168 [23] In 1915, the IRT considered constructing a new mezzanine and entrance at the southern end of the station leading to the central mall of Broadway at 94th Street, with an estimated cost of $60,000.

In 1960, work was completed on improvements at the 96th Street station, including the installation of fluorescent lighting, as well as platform extensions.

[39][37] In November 1959, the Warshaw Construction Company received a contract to remove fifteen entrance/exit kiosks on IRT lines, including four at the 96th Street station.

[41] In 1977, a special committee of the NYCTA Board issued a report advising the MTA to halt plans to reduce the hours of 21 token booths, including that at the 96th Street station.

A member of the special committee said that the savings from reducing the hours at token booths often was not significant enough to outweigh inconveniences to riders.

Construction started in 2007 on a new head house in the median of Broadway between 95th and 96th Streets, with elevators to the platforms to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

[47] By 2009, the opening of the new head house was set to be 20 months early and $26 million cheaper due to budget cuts.

[50][51][52] The side platforms became office and control space, and the entrances were removed to accommodate narrowed sidewalks to offset the new head house's protrusion into the roadway.

[55] The intersection of 96th Street and Broadway saw numerous pedestrian and vehicular crashes after its completion;[56] the New York Daily News described the crossing to the new station entrance as "treacherous" in 2014.

[59] 96th Street contains four tracks and two island platforms that allow for cross-platform interchanges between local and express trains heading in the same direction.

[50][60] A combination of island and side platforms was also used at Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall and 14th Street–Union Square on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line.

Lowering the station to provide ample space for a mezzanine would have led to gradients that would have hindered efficient train operation.

In addition, it was determined to be too costly to lower a large 6.5 feet (2.0 m)-wide trunk sewer in 96th Street, which was at the bottom of a drainage valley, enough to provide room for a mezzanine.

Additional columns between the tracks, spaced every 5 feet (1.5 m), support the jack-arched concrete station roofs.

[69] The main, ADA-accessible entrance is through a domed, glass-clad head house on the Broadway median between 95th and 96th Streets.

[52] According to the head house's designer Urbahn Architects, the structure "is a reinterpretation of the archetypal 19th Century train shed", with a vaulted roof made of titanium.

The flowers are placed on seven ceiling beams 12 feet (3.7 m) high, and they can shake slightly to give the impression of a "shimmering garden".

The staircases were closed when the head house was opened on April 5, 2010, but a part of the original cross-under inside the fare control still exists.