The initial segment of the IRT White Plains Road Line opened on November 26, 1904 between 180th Street–Bronx Park and Jackson Avenue. Initially, trains on the line were served by elevated trains from the IRT Second Avenue Line and the IRT Third Avenue Line. Once the connection to the IRT Lenox Avenue Line opened on July 10, 1905, trains from the newly opened IRT subway ran via the line. The Bergen Avenue cutoff, which allowed Third Avenue trains to access the White Plains Road Line, was abandoned on November 5, 1946, as part of the gradual curtailment of elevated service on the IRT Third Avenue Line. On June 13, 1949, the platform extensions at this station, as well as those on White Plains Road Line stations south to Jackson Avenue, opened. The platforms were lengthened to to allow full ten-car express trains to open their doors. Previously the stations could only accommodate six-car local trains. On November 1, 1951, a contract for the construction of a mezzanine was awarded to Amdor Structures Incorporated. The mezzanine connected the subway station with a new escalator in Boston Road near the Bronx Zoo.
Station layout
This elevated station, situated on a high curve, one of the highest elevations on the line, has three tracks and two side platforms. The center track is used by the 5 train during rush hours in peak direction. The northbound platform is longer than the southbound one and can fit about 12 cars. Both platforms have beige windscreens with green frames and outlines and green canopies with red roofs on their northern half and gray, waist-high, steel fences with lamposts at regular intervals on their southern half. The station name signs are in the standard black name plate in white lettering. The 2004 artwork here is called Animal Tracks by Naomi Andrée Campbell. It consists of in 13 faceted glass murals on the platform windscreens depicting images related to the Bronx Zoo, which is several blocks to the north. Just north of the station are the abandoned trackways to 180th Street–Bronx Park, the original terminal of the White Plains Road Line.
Exits
This station has two elevated station houses below the platforms and tracks. The full-time one is at the center. Two staircases from each platform go down to a crossunder, where doors lead to a waiting area. Outside the turnstile bank that provides access to and from the station, there is a token booth, two staircases going down to the northeast corner of East Tremont Avenue and Boston Road, and one staircase and one enclosed escalator going down to the northwest corner. The station's other station house at the north end is unstaffed, containing one staircase from the northwest corner of East 178th Street and Boston Road, a set of High Entry-Exit Turnstiles, and two staircases to each platform.
