Contract 4 of the Dual Contracts, adopted on March 4, 1913 between New York City and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT; later the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT), included a subway route under 14th Street, to run to Canarsie in Brooklyn; this became the BMT's Canarsie Line.

[4]: 203–219 [5] Booth and Flinn was awarded the first contract for the line, namely a tunnel under the East River, in January 1916.

[13][14] In 1923, a plan for such a line, to be operated by the BRT was adopted by the city,[15] but Mayor John Francis Hylan announced his opposition to it the next year.

[18] Originally, passengers who wished to transfer between the Canarsie and Crosstown lines had to pay a separate fare, because the BMT and IRT were competing companies.

The artwork in the transfer passageway and the Crosstown Line mezzanine is called Signs of Life,[23] designed by Jackie Chang in 2000.

[24][25] Signs of Life is made of ceramic tiles of glass and consists of numerous juxtaposed words and icons.

[22] The Lorimer Street station's fare control area also contains the artwork Personal Choice #5, designed by Chloë Bass and completed in 2024.

[22] The main entrances at the corner of Metropolitan and Union Avenues lead to the transfer corridor between the lines.

The BMT platforms have a second set to the eastern corners of Lorimer Street and Metropolitan Avenue at their east ends.

[27] They were reopened on February 28, 2019 to accommodate the increased volume of passengers transferring between the Crosstown and Canarsie Line stations due to the 14th Street Tunnel shutdown.

[34] The BMT station previously had two closed exits; they led to the western corners of Lorimer Street and Metropolitan Avenue.

The Metropolitan Avenue station (also announced as Metropolitan Avenue-Lorimer Street station) on the IND Crosstown Line opened on July 1, 1937 as part of the extension of the Crosstown Line from Nassau Avenue to Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets.

[43] Two staircases from the north end of either platform lead to the mezzanine and transfer passageway to the BMT Canarsie Line.

A central portion was closed in the late 1990s and is now occupied by a police facility, employee space, and offices.

[42] The south portion was also previously closed and used as storage space, but was reopened on February 28, 2019 in preparation for the 14th Street Tunnel shutdown in April 2019.