The 96th Street station is a station on the IND Second Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Second Avenue and 96th Street on the border of the Upper East Side/Yorkville and East Harlem neighborhoods in Manhattan, it is the northern terminus for the Q train at all times. It is also served by limited rush hour N trains and one northbound morning rush hour R train. The station is the terminus for the first phase of the Second Avenue Line.

The Second Avenue Subway is a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The first phase of this new line, with three new stations on Manhattan's Upper East Side, opened on January 1, 2017. The full Second Avenue Line, if it will be funded, will be built in three more phases to eventually connect Harlem–125th Street in Harlem to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. The proposed full line would be 8.5 miles (13.7 km) and 16 stations long, serve a projected 560,000 daily riders, and cost more than $17 billion.