The original portion of the Bleecker Street station's interior is a New York City designated landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[3]: 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.

[14][3]: 186  The opening of the first subway line, and particularly the Bleecker Street station, helped contribute to more development in the East Village, which at the time was already densely populated.

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

[22]: 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.

[28][29] At the end of the month, the Transit Commission requested that the IRT create plans to lengthen the platforms at Bleecker Street and three other Lexington Avenue Line stations to 480 feet (150 m).

[37] In April 1960, work began on a $3,509,000 project (equivalent to $36.1 million in 2023) to lengthen platforms at seven IRT Lexington Avenue Line stations to accommodate ten-car trains.

[15] New York City mayor John Francis Hylan's original plans for the Independent Subway System (IND), proposed in 1922, included building over 100 miles (160 km) of new lines and taking over nearly 100 miles (160 km) of existing lines, which would compete with the IRT and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the two major subway operators of the time.

[46] In 1930, the New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) identified the locations of 104 stations to be built in the IND system.

[49] In early 1934, the BOT began looking to rent out a vacant lot at the intersection of Lafayette and Houston Streets, which had been cleared for the construction of the subway.

[50][51] That July, the BOT solicited bids for the installation of signals and switches on the Houston–Essex Street Line; the contract had been scheduled for January 1933 but was delayed eighteen months because the city did not have enough money.

[56][57] Newsday wrote in 1992: "This one subway station has enough hidden corners, secret passages, dead-end mezzanines and staircases to nowhere to accommodate half the homeless population of New York.

[58] The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which operated the subway system, removed several benches from the station in 1990 to dissuade homeless people from staying there.

Passengers had to exit the IND station, walk one block north to Bleecker Street, and pay an additional fare.

[68] Most passengers transferring between the IND and the uptown IRT platform continued to pay an additional fare, except for holders of unlimited-ride MetroCards, after that option was introduced in the 1990s.

[67] According to transit historian Clifton Hood, the lack of a northbound transfer was a "pretty late holdover" from the era prior to the unification of the city's three subway systems in 1940.

This would have alleviated congestion caused by the closure of the Manhattan Bridge's northern pair of subway tracks, which resulted in numerous service changes at the IND station.

At the time, the MTA stated that the transfer to the uptown Bleecker Street platform would be completed at the end of June.

There was no express service at the Broadway–Lafayette Street station, since the tracks ended abruptly at West Fourth Street–Washington Square to the north and Second Avenue to the east.

[87][88] The CC Eighth Avenue local service, which only ran during rush hours, began terminating at Broadway–Lafayette Street on weekdays in 1949.

[104] As part of the MTA Arts & Design program, Leo Villareal created a light installation called Hive in 2012.

[105] It is located at the newest section of the uptown IRT platform in the mezzanine providing the transfer to the IND station.

A set of turnstiles on the south side leads to two staircases at the southeast corner of Lafayette and Houston Streets.

Another set of turnstiles on the north side leads to a stair and an elevator on the northwest corner of Lafayette and Houston Streets.

The extreme east end of the IND station contains stairs and escalators to the eastern mezzanine, which is shared with the northbound IRT platform.

One stair each goes to the northwestern and southwestern corners of Lafayette and Bleecker Streets, and serve the southbound IRT platform.

One stair each goes to the northeastern, southwestern, and southeastern corners of Mulberry and Bleecker Streets, and serve the northbound IRT platform.

Blue I-beam columns run along either side of both platforms at regular intervals with alternating ones having the standard black station name plate and white lettering.

[113] East (railroad south) of this station, there used to be a crossover between the two southbound tracks before they were reconfigured in 1967 by the Chrystie Street Connection.