Prior to the building of the station, it was called St Andrew's. It was renamed to City Hall for historical significance reasons in 1984. On 4 May 1984, the contractor Nishimatsu-Lum Chang Joint Venture awarded the construction of the station where it began on June 1984 together with the tunnels to Bugis MRT station, under Contract 107B. The construction of the tunnel between City Hall and Raffles Place stations was a challenge as it has to go underneath the Singapore River, which was still polluted at the time and made the soil acidic. An integral waterproofing system was then implemented for the tunnel, as the system is not to be affected by the acidic soil condition and should be an effective and fast system to avoid delay due to tidal condition. The station opened on 12 December 1987, and later became an interchange station between the East West and North South lines after the operational split on 4 November 1989. Plans were announced by the LTA to construct a new underpass between the station and the redeveloped Capitol Singapore. Construction work on the underground link and the new station entrance started in the fourth quarter of 2014, and completed in the first quarter of 2015.
Incidents
On December 10, 1985, a foreman died at City Hall MRT station. On June 5, 2008, 280 youths spent the night at City Hall to learn how to deal with an emergency in a train tunnel. There was a simulated bomb explosion during this exercise and they learn how to activate the detrainment ramps at both ends of the train, and evacuate to safety via an escape shaft. The students also used the items from their Ready Bags to "survive" the attack. This station was part of the series of 2011 MRT train disruptions on 15 and 17 December 2011, caused by a misalignment between the trains' current collector shoes, which collect power from the third rail, and the third rail itself. These were Singapore's two largest MRT disruptions at the time of occurrence. A power failure and blackout occurred at the station on 6 July 2012 at about 1.30 pm, causing the platforms for north and west-bound trains to turn pitch black. Air-conditioning and escalators also stopped functioning. Emergency lighting was turned on immediately after the incident occurred. However, train services were not affected by the incident. Lighting was progressively restored from 2 pm, and was back to normal at 3.15 pm. All escalators have also been turned on. SMRT has apologised for any inconvenience caused.
There is a mural along the wall of the station called Vitreous Enamelled Mural by Simon Wong. However, this art piece is not under the Art in Transit scheme.
Popular culture
City Hall is one of the four MRT stations to appear in the original and the "Uniquely Singapore Edition" of the board game Monopoly. It was also mentioned in the 2009 film Whiteout.
