The Spring Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900.

Construction of the line segment that includes the Spring Street station started on September 12 of the same year.

[4]: 21  However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature authorized the Rapid Transit Act.

It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx.

[4]: 148  The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900,[6] in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line.

[5]: 4  Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.

Construction on this section of the line began on July 10, 1900, and was awarded to Degnon-McLean Contracting Company.

[9] The Rapid Transit Commission had yet to pay McDonald for his work by January 1903, in part because sewage lines on the west side of Elm Street had not been completed.

East Side local trains ran from City Hall to Lenox Avenue (145th Street).

[14] In 1909, to address overcrowding, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway.

[15]: 168  As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains.

[22][23] At the end of the month, the Transit Commission requested that the IRT create plans to lengthen the platforms at Bleecker Street and three other Lexington Avenue Line stations to 480 feet (150 m).

[31] In April 1960, work began on a $3,509,000 project (equivalent to $37.3 million in 2024) to lengthen platforms at seven of these stations to accommodate ten-car trains.

[40] As with other stations built as part of the original IRT, the tunnel is covered by a U-shaped trough that contains utility pipes and wires.

Additional columns between the tracks, spaced every 5 feet (1.5 m), support the jack-arched concrete station roofs.

[38]: 10  The station has small "S" cartouches with two poppies from 1904, made by Atlantic Terra Cotta, and large mosaic tablets by Heins & LaFarge, also from 1904.