Various changes in plans, as well as material shortages due to the Great Depression and World War II, delayed the project until 1946.

[10] The Queens Boulevard Line was extended up to 169th Street on April 24, 1937, with the tail tracks and switches used to store and reverse trains.

[11][12][13] Calls from the local community to build a new station at 178th Street occurred as early as 1932; several of these requests came from the Jamaica Estates Association.

[14][15] As early as 1936, the New York City Board of Transportation (predecessor to the New York City Transit Authority and the MTA) was evaluating construction of the station along with further eastward extensions of the line, with the board's 1940 budget allocating funding for the station.

[20] In July 1941, the Board of Transportation requested funding for a new express terminal station to replace 169th Street.

[2][22] The plans for the station were approved after the war in 1946, in order to "provide a more satisfactory terminal" for the line.

[13][18][23] A groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 5, 1947, at 182nd Street and Hillside Avenue, with Mayor William O'Dwyer and now-borough president Burke in attendance.

[28] Upon opening, the station became a major transit hub for passengers from south and east Queens and Nassau County, and led to increased development in Jamaica.

[42] 179th Street served as the full-time northern terminal for both Queens Boulevard express services (the E and F trains), which led to congestion at the station,[43] until December 11, 1988, when the E was rerouted to the Archer Avenue Subway.

[45] Starting in 2001, selected rush-hour E trains began running to 179th Street, making express stops along Hillside Avenue, due to capacity constraints at Jamaica Center.

[57] The station has beige wall tiles with intertwining blue and orange stripes, representing the two colors of the New York City flag, and the colors of the IND Eighth Avenue and Sixth Avenue lines which serve the station.

[2] The station is ADA-accessible via an elevator installed at 179th Place on the north side of Hillside Avenue.

[34][64] The station lies about 3.25 miles (5.23 km) west of the city's border with Nassau County.

[67] New York Magazine described the station's location as being in "a neighborhood so outer-borough it might as well be in another state"—namely, one of "hip-hop’s fertile crescents" where rappers 50 Cent and Ja Rule grew up.

The line would have continued under Hillside Avenue to Springfield Boulevard and Braddock Avenue (both formerly Rocky Hill Road) in Queens Village,[5][17] with later plans to extend the line to Little Neck Parkway in Bellerose near the Nassau County border.

[34] The childhood home of former president Donald Trump, located at 85-15 Wareham Place, is a few blocks away from the Midland Parkway entrance to the station.

This refers to the Passionist Monastery of the Immaculate Conception and Bishop Molloy Retreat House, located along a 12-acre (4.9 ha) complex one block north of the station.