West Fourth Street–Washington Square station
New York City subway station on the IND Sixth Avenue and IND Eighth Avenue Lines
The West Fourth Street–Washington Square station (also known as the West Fourth Street station) is an express station and transfer stop on the IND Sixth Avenue and IND Eighth Avenue Lines of the New York City Subway, located at the intersection of West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. It is served by the A, D, E, and F trains at all times; the B and M trains on weekdays; the C train at all times except late nights; and the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction.
The West Fourth Street station was built as an express station for the Independent Subway System (IND)'s Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue Lines. It has four island platforms and eight tracks, split evenly across two levels, which are connected by a mezzanine. The Eighth Avenue Line platforms on the upper level opened on September 10, 1932, as part of the IND's first segment, while the Sixth Avenue Line platforms on the lower level opened on December 15, 1940. The West Fourth Street station contains elevators, which make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
Construction and opening
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 Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the two major subway operators of the time. On December 9, 1924, the New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) gave preliminary approval for the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line. This line consisted of a corridor connecting Inwood, Manhattan, to Downtown Brooklyn, running largely under Eighth Avenue but also paralleling Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue in Lower Manhattan.
“West Fourth Street–Washington Square station” enters the record as new York City subway station on the IND Sixth Avenue and IND Eighth Avenue Lines. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what West, Fourth and Street can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“West Fourth Street–Washington Square station” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, West, Fourth and Street provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2343574. Authority coordinates are 40.732, -74.001. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1940, 1990 and 1922.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “West Fourth Street–Washington Square station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.