The original station house is one of a few surviving examples designed by Heins & LaFarge, which designed elements of many of the original IRT subway stations. It was built as one of several station houses on the original IRT; similar station houses were built at Atlantic Avenue, Bowling Green, Mott Avenue, 103rd Street, and 116th Street. The station house occupies an area of and is aligned parallel to Broadway to create a focal point on Sherman Square. This places the station house slightly askew from the Manhattan street grid, of which 72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue are part. When the station was completed, the station house's architecture was unpopular; an anonymous critic in "The New York Times" derided it as "A miserable monstrosity as to architecture". The West End Association had adopted a resolution in December 1904, declaring the station house "not only an offense to the eye, but a very serious danger to life and limb".