stations along the original IRT line, including 79th Street and five other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. Platform lengths at these stations would be increased from . The commission postponed the platform-lengthening project in September 1923, at which point the cost had risen to $5.6 million. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The Broadway route to 242nd Street became known as the 1 and the Lenox Avenue route as the 3. The original IRT stations north of Times Square could barely fit local trains of five or six cars depending on the configuration of the trains. Stations on the line from 50th Street to 96th Street, including this station but excluding the 91st Street station, had their platforms extended in the 1950s to accommodate ten-car trains as part of a $100 million () rebuilding program. The contract to extend the platforms at 79th Street and 86th Street was awarded to Delma Engineering Corporation for $1,867,705 in 1957 (). The platform extensions at the local stations were completed by early 1958. Once the project was completed, all 1 trains became local and all 2 and 3 trains became express, and eight-car local trains began operation. Increased and lengthened service was implemented during peak hours on the 1 train on February 6, 1959. Due to the lengthening of the platforms at 86th Street and 96th Street, the intermediate 91st Street station was closed on February 2, 1959, because it was too close to the other two stations. In November 1959, the Warshaw Construction Company received a contract to remove fifteen entrance/exit kiosks on IRT lines, including two at the 79th Street station. This was part of a citywide initiative to remove the kiosks, which obstructed motorists' views of pedestrians. On June 28, 1964, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) awarded a contract to construct additional entrances at the station to Delma Engineering Corporation for $212,874 (). Work on the project was still underway in 1967. In April 1988, the NYCTA unveiled plans to speed up service on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line through the implementation of a skip-stop service: the 9 train. When skip-stop service started in 1989, it was only implemented north of 137th Street–City College on weekdays, and