The Grand Concourse begins here at East 138th Street; the station opened as Mott Haven Avenue.
Designed by Louis Aloys Risse, an immigrant from Lorraine, and modelled on the Champs-Élysées, the Concourse was built between 1894 and 1909. In 1927 it was extended south to 138th Street after Mott Avenue was widened. The station’s first name recalled Mott Haven, named after the industrialist Jordan L. Mott (1799–1866), who bought land here in the 1840s for his iron works.