The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) began constructing additional staircases, including four new entrances, at the station in 2022.

[8] At the time of the line's planning, Downtown Flushing was a quiet Dutch-colonial-style village; what is now Roosevelt Avenue in the area was known as Amity Street, a major commercial thoroughfare in the neighborhood.

[7]: 277  Eleven days later, the PSC announced its intent to extend the line as an el from Corona to Flushing, with a possible further extension to Little Neck Bay in Bayside.

[7]: 56  There was consensus that the line should not abruptly end in Corona, but even with the 5.5-mile-long (8.9 km) extension to Bayside, the borough would still have fewer Dual Contracts route mileage than either Brooklyn or the Bronx.

The New York Times wrote that compared to the Bronx, Queens would have far less subway mileage per capita even with the Flushing extension.

[7]: 61  Under the revised subway expansion plan put forth in December 1913, the Flushing Line would be extended past Main Street, along and/or parallel to the right-of-way of the nearby Port Washington Branch of the LIRR towards Bell Boulevard in Bayside.

The LIRR moved to block the IRT extension past Flushing since it would compete with the Port Washington Branch service in Bayside.

[7]: 62  One member of the United Civic Association submitted a proposal to the LIRR to let the IRT use the Port Washington Branch to serve Flushing and Bayside, using a connection between the two lines in Corona.

[7]: 63 [15] The LIRR president at the time, Ralph Peters, offered to lease the Port Washington and Whitestone Branches to the IRT for rapid transit use for $250,000 annually (equivalent to $7,530,000 in 2023), excluding other maintenance costs.

The Flushing Business Men's Association kept advocating for the Amity Street subway, causing a schism between them and the rest of the groups that supported the LIRR lease.

[7]: 65–66  The Whitestone Improvement Association, impatient with the pace of negotiations, approved of the subway under Amity Street even though it would not serve them directly.

[17][7]: 67  The Third Ward Rapid Transit Association wrote a report showing how much they had petitioned for Flushing subway extensions to that point, compared to how little progress they had made in doing so.

[7]: 68 The Whitestone Branch would have had to be rebuilt if it were leased to the subway, with railroad crossings removed and the single track doubled.

[7]: 72  As part of the 1929 IND Second System plan, the Flushing Line would have had branches to College Point and Bayside east of Main Street.

[7]: 72  In 1956, the Queens Chamber of Commerce and Queens Transit Committee again proposed the extensions east of the station to Bayside and College Point, along with a new spur along Kissena Boulevard running south to Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica and eventually leading to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

[24][25] Due to the high level of passenger use, beginning in 1940 local residents requested an additional exit at the east end of the station, and the widening of existing staircases.

[7]: 72 [30] Ground broke on the new entrance on November 5, 1947,[31][32] and it opened on October 28, 1948 with two new street stairs and an additional token booth.

[40][41] The platforms at Main Street and all other stations on the Flushing Line, with the exception of Queensboro Plaza, were extended in 1955–1956 to accommodate 565-foot-long (172 m), 11-car trains.

The renovation added an elevator near the eastern Lippmann Plaza exit that made the station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The National Park Service listed the station because it was considered a good historic example of Squire J. Vickers architecture during the time of construction.

[52][4] As part of the 2015–2019 MTA Capital Program, New York City allocated $300 million to be used for projects to increase subway station capacity and to make them ADA accessible.

In addition, the project would strengthen or reframe the mezzanine wall liner and roof level beams, and the four existing platform-to-mezzanine staircases would be modified and would receive ADA-compliant handrails and guardrails.

West of the station, the line rises from the tunnel via a portal at College Point Boulevard, and onto the elevated bridge across Flushing Creek.

[5][49] The original street exit is in the middle of the platforms with a separate mezzanine above the tracks, which contains the fare control area and the 24-hour station agent's booth.

[68]: 4 The fare control area at Lippmann Plaza has an extremely high ceiling, with the lobby itself located approximately 40 feet (12 m) below the street level.

[12][49][73][74][75] The plaza, also known as Lippmann Arcade, is a pedestrian walkway that leads to a municipal parking lot and several bus stops on 39th Avenue.

[3] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, ridership dropped drastically in 2020, with only 6,944,923 passengers entering the station that year.

[81][82] Several city and national landmarks are located on the Queens Historical Society's Freedom Mile, which runs around downtown Flushing:[83] Other points of interest include: