The station came under the ownership of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as part of the Big Four grouping in 1923. The former GNR services from Broad Street were stopped completely in 1939 in order to accommodate essential World War II traffic. Broad Street was badly damaged during the war. The lines leading to the station were taken out of action after an overnight raid on 3–4 October 1940, closing the station for a number of days. Similar disruption occurred on 13 October and 11 November. The service to Shoreditch closed in 1940, while the service to Poplar was withdrawn on 14 May 1944 and was never reinstated. A number of peak-season mainline trains to used Broad Street to take pressure off King's Cross in the early 1950s, but otherwise only a small number of local services remained. The main station building was closed in 1956, with passengers being directed to a new concourse-level building at the platform entrance to buy tickets.