Named after West 4th Street and Washington Square, which honours George Washington.
The square, named for George Washington (1732–1799), was acquired by the city in 1797 as a potter’s field, used as a military parade ground in 1826 and became a public park in 1827. Subway planners called the station ‘West Fourth Street’ rather than plain ‘Fourth Street’ to avoid confusion with a planned South Fourth Street station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which was never built.