I found this:
October 25, 2004 -- Welcome to the "new" City Hall Station.
To celebrate the subway's centennial year, the MTA has spruced up the original City Hall Station, which will host tomorrow's re-enactment of the city's first subway ride.
The ornate station — once the system's "centerpiece," but abandoned since 1945 — has gotten a cleaning for the big day.
The ceremony, which will include Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, will start tomorrow at 11 a.m. at City Hall and culminate with a ride on a four-car vintage train.
Bloomberg will relive history as he follows in the footsteps of Mayor George McClellan, who, on Oct. 27, 1904, boarded a northbound train at the City Hall station, activated the switch and even operated the train in what was the city's first subway ride.
Plans call for the ride to start at City Hall and run express along the Lexington Avenue line, where it will end at Grand Central.
The antique train — normally housed at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn — will be on the rails along the Broadway line between Times Square and West 137th Street for a few hours after the re-enactment so straphangers will get a chance to take a ride.
"This is a very ornamental station that served as the system's centerpiece," said Joe Cunningham, a subway historian who has led tours of the original City Hall Station. "The station has been very well preserved over the decades."
James Kern
