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.

[3][4] On December 9, 1924, the New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) gave preliminary approval for the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line.

[9] As part of the project, Church Street was widened, allowing the line's four tracks to be placed on one level rather than two.

[13][14] The Chambers Street and Hudson Terminal stations on the Eighth Avenue Line opened just after midnight on September 10, 1932, as the southern terminus of the city-operated IND's initial segment, the Eighth Avenue Line between Chambers Street–Hudson Terminal and 207th Street.

[18] In April 1993, the New York State Legislature agreed to give the MTA $9.6 billion for capital improvements.

Some of the funds would be used to renovate nearly one hundred New York City Subway stations,[20][21] including Chambers Street and World Trade Center.

As a result, two-thirds of A trains were canceled or rerouted, including all rush-hour trips to Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street.

Initial estimates gave a time of three to five years to restore full service because the destroyed equipment was custom-made for the MTA.

[24] The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line first opened as a shuttle to 34th Street–Penn Station on June 3, 1917.

[27] The new "H" system was implemented on August 1, 1918, joining the two halves of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and sending all West Side trains south from Times Square.

[30][31] During the 1964–1965 fiscal year, the platforms at Park Place, along with those at four other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, were lengthened to 525 feet (160 m) to accommodate a ten-car train of 51-foot (16 m) IRT cars.

[33] The Cortlandt Street station on the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s Broadway Line opened on January 5, 1918.

The original BMT wall tiles were removed and the "new" station walls contained cinderblock tiles (colored white with small recesses painted yellow), with black and white station-name signs bolted into the recesses.

In addition to "state-of-repair" work and upgrades for ADA accessibility, the station's original 1918 tilework was restored.

[44][45][46] The rebuilt southbound platform reopened on September 6, 2011, while continuing excavation along the Church Street side of the World Trade Center site was being performed.

Southbound local trains reach the platform by ramping underneath the express tracks south of Canal Street station.

The northern end of the World Trade Center station has a signal tower and a diamond crossover switch that are roughly at the middle of the through-platform.

[66] When the first World Trade Center was completed on Hudson Terminal's site in 1973, the IND station was renamed.

Only this platform is ADA-accessible via a ramp installed in 1987, making the station one of the earliest in the New York City Subway system to be accessible to disabled users.

The doors and original ADA-accessible ramp, as well as the structure from the first World Trade Center leading into the station, survived the September 11 attacks.

[58][69] The newly reopened passageway retained its pre-9/11 design, save for a door on display that has the words "MATF 1 / 9 13" spray-painted on it (a message from Urban Search and Rescue Massachusetts Task Force 1 of Beverly, Massachusetts, who searched the World Trade Center site on September 13, 2001).

[57] The MTA's elevator to the local platform, at the southeast corner of Church Street and Park Place, connects to the local platform via a long ramp from the main mezzanine shared with Chambers Street, but it was out of service between 2001 and 2018 due to long-term construction on the current World Trade Center.

There are over 300 mosaics dispersed throughout the IND and IRT stations, which are part of the 1998 installation Oculus created by Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel.

[72] According to Jones and Ginzel, Oculus is a constellation of stone and glass mosaics in the underground labyrinth of interconnected subway stations of lower Manhattan.

The work's centerpiece is a large exquisitely detailed, elliptical glass and stone mosaic floor (38 ft 8 in x 20'8") at the heart of the Park Place Station.

The continents of the earth, interwoven with the City of New York amidst an ultramarine pool, surround a large eye in the middle of the mosaic.

The mosaic is at once a vision of the world, a reflecting pool of water and a representation New York City in its proper geographical orientation.

The work's detailed renderings of the eye–the most telling, fragile and vulnerable human feature–offer a profound sense of intimacy within a public place.

Together, the images create a sense of unity and flow: animating, orienting and humanizing the station.

It has two tracks and a single island platform with a line of blue i-beam columns with alternating ones having the standard black name plate in white lettering.