Named after 23rd Street and Baruch College, which honours the financier Bernard Baruch.
The college began in 1919 as City College’s School of Business and Civic Administration. In 1953 it was renamed for Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), an 1889 graduate of City College who became a financier and adviser to two presidents. The station took the college’s name on 17 October 2025. 23rd Street is one of fifteen 100-foot-wide crosstown streets of the 1811 plan.