This station was constructed as part of the Independent Subway System, and opened in 1933, along with the rest of the Concourse Line. This station was not intended to be the terminus of the Concourse Line or the D train; the tracks were supposed to have been extended east past Bronx Park and the IRT White Plains Road Line along Burke Avenue to serve the northeast section of the Bronx. But with the city's acquisition of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway and subsequent conversion into the IRT Dyre Avenue Line, such an extension was deemed unnecessary. In the early 1950s, vacant land above the east end of the station was given to the New York Public Library and to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.