One of the oldest railroad terminals still in use today is the Lackawanna Railroad Terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey. By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, Scranton's home-grown railroad, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, reached from the Hudson River at Hoboken, New Jersey (with its own terminals and ferryboats to serve New York City) westward through Scranton and across Pennsylvania.

The Lackawanna Station is what most people think of as Hobokens own distinctive railroad. Its ornate terminal was built and completed in 1907. Included in the takeover of passenger service by New Jersey Transit in 1976, it is the last active train terminal on the Hudson River waterfront. Ferry boats were established along the waterfront to serve both New Jersey and New York City. Since the terminal's opening in 1907 there have been countless numbers of immigrants passing through, travelers heading west to Chicago and elsewhere, sleepy commuters bound for jobs in Manhattan and others. (AD)

The Hoboken Terminal, built to replace a station that burned down, was designed by Brooklyn-based architect Kenneth Murchison. It is one of the great remaining examples of the Beaux-Arts style on the East Coast.

Broadly speaking, the term Beaux Arts refers to the American Renaissance period from about 1876 to 1930 and encompasses the Italian Renaissance and Neo-classical revival styles. The Beaux-Arts style is a very rich, lavish and heavily ornamented neo-classical style. Characteristics of the Beaux-Arts style include a symmetrical façade; low, flat-pitched mansard roofs; wall surfaces with decorative garlands, floral patterns, or cartouches dripping with sculptural ornament; masonry walls (usually using smooth, light-colored stone); facades with quoins and pilasters or columns (usually paired, with Ionic or Corinthian capitals). The first story may be rusticated with a rough, less finished look to the masonry.

The main waiting area features a large cast iron clock and an impressive marble staircase, which leads to the ferry portion of the building. Many years ago there were entrances to the Hudson and Manhattan subway tubes and the Barclay Street ferry. The staircase in the center is still used today to access PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) trains from the station.

The beautiful waiting room has recently been restored to look as it did nearly a century ago. The skylight overhead is made of Tiffany glass. In 1917 there was a smoking room to the left of the stairs; that space has been converted into the mens lavatory. The waiting room alone cost over $9 million to restore. In September of 1998, New Jersey Transit approved a contract to restore and improve the main waiting room, a huge turn-of-the-century grotto used daily by about 37,000 people seeking ticket windows, the lost-and-found, bathrooms, and newsstands. That project took until December 1999; the remaining repair and restoration projects will take another 10 years to complete. (AD)

Kenneth French, Images of Rail: Railroads of Hoboken and Jersey City (Arcadia Publishing, South Carolina, 2002).

United Transportation Union, Hoboken Terminal Makeover a Real Gem, UTU Daily News Digest (11 September 1998).