The station was built as part of the Chrystie Street Connection between the Sixth Avenue Line and the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges.

[3] The New York City Board of Estimate voted in September 1951 to construct the Second Avenue Subway and several related lines for $500 million.

[9] Because there was a large number of senior citizens living near that intersection, the station was originally planned to contain many ramps and "a minimum of steps".

[15] In 1960, New York City Transit allocated $23 million for the installation of new signals in the Chrystie Street tunnels and six other locations in the subway system.

[26] The Grand Street Shuttle also operated when the north tracks were closed again from April to November 1995;[27] the closure caused nearby vendors' business to decline.

[28] A third entrance was added in 1999 to accommodate the station's growing ridership, which in turn was spurred by the growth of the Chinese population in New York City.

[31][32] Many Chinese New Yorkers expressed opposition to the plans, as there would no longer be direct subway service between Grand Street and Brooklyn.

The New York Times wrote that many of the station's 27,000 daily riders were "Chinese- Americans who live in Brooklyn, come for fresh fish and produce, herbal medicines and household supplies", and that community members feared a decline in business when the Manhattan Bridge's north tracks closed.

[33][34] The MTA also agreed to operate a shuttle bus to the Canal Street station when the bridge's northern tracks were closed in 2001.

[37] They are column-less, except at staircases, and have a blue trim line with "GRAND ST" in white sans-serif font on it at regular intervals.

[40][23] There is a sole mezzanine at the center of the station which has two staircases to each platform, a turnstile bank, token booth, and access to the street exits.

[38] A painted frieze called Trains of Thought by Andrea Gardner and Sally Heller was installed at the mezzanine and platforms in the late 1990s as the "Creative Stations" program sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

[51] During modern planning, it was considered to utilize the cross-platform provision, known as the "Shallow Chrystie Option", or to place the tracks under Forsyth Street one block east (the Forsyth Option), both of which could tie into an existing tunnel near the Chatham Square station site south of Canal Street.

[59] To the north of the station, the Second Avenue Subway tunnels would curve to travel under Sara D. Roosevelt Park rather than directly below the Sixth Avenue Line tunnels under Chrystie Street, to avoid steel piles and other obstructions dating from the construction of the Chrystie Street Connection.