More than 50,000 commuters stream through Hoboken’s train terminal on a typical weekday without catching so much as a glimpse of its long-hidden beauty.
Perched for more than 115 years on piers in the Hudson River, the terminal is one of the larger and busier transit hubs in the United States. Suburban commuters shuffle off trains there and catch ferry boats, PATH trains, light rail or buses to get to their jobs in New York City or along the western riverfront.
Most of these people never step inside the large waiting hall on the building’s ground floor, where a Tiffany stained-glass skylight and bronze chandeliers evoke a glamorous era of rail travel. And virtually none have seen the giant space upstairs that once held a 250-seat restaurant with mahogany woodwork, French gilt fixtures and a balcony over the water.
That upper level is a revelation: an enclosed space nearly 500 feet long and 30 feet high with views of New York City that extend from the harbor to the George Washington Bridge and beyond.
While almost every acre of the adjacent waterfront has been redeveloped, this prime spot has sat, shuttered and crumbling, for decades. A rare glimpse came in the music video for Eric Clapton’s 1996 version of the song “Change the World.”
Nearly 30 years later, the inside of the ferry concourse looked pretty much the same last week as New Jersey Transit officials led a tour of it. They were offering a last look before work begins to restore the space as a venue for live music and other forms of entertainment.
The renovation is part of a project being developed by New Jersey Transit, which owns the terminal, and LCOR, a real estate investment company. The project, Hoboken Connect, also includes the construction of a 27-story apartment building, which began in January.
“There’s nothing like this,” said Brian Barry, a senior vice president at LCOR, as he walked through the concourse describing its scale and lavishness. “You wouldn’t build this again today.”
What eventually becomes of the space is still to be decided. New Jersey Transit plans to seek bids for a venue operator by the summer, according to Gagandeep Singh, a senior adviser at the agency.
Sean Massey, a development executive at the agency, said the goal was to create a “contemporary event and exhibition space” that could serve as an anchor for the community. It could be, he said, “a destination for everything from marquee events to weddings and office parties.”
The developers plan to spend about two years overhauling the upper level, once the concourse for passengers getting on and off ferries from lines identified by where they landed in Manhattan. Above one gate, a well-preserved sign reads, “Barclay St. Boat.”
The terminal was one of five along the North Jersey waterfront at the end of railroad lines in the early 20th century, before there was a rail tunnel under the Hudson. It was built by and for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, which ran from Hoboken to Buffalo.
The Erie, Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads and the Central Railroad of New Jersey also had terminals that connected trains to ferries at the river’s edge.
The competition for passengers drove the railroads to erect grand structures with architectural flourishes and modern amenities like telephone booths.
The terminal that stands in Hoboken today was not the first to be built there. Its precursors all burned down, so Kenneth Murchison, the architect hired by the railroad, took steps to make the building fireproof. The five-inch-thick walls were made of concrete, according to the construction engineer, Charles C. Hurlbut.
He covered the facade in copper that has long since taken on a bright green patina that matches the Statue of Liberty. Light was brought in through skylights and stained-glass windows. Some skylights remain obscured by blackout paint applied during World War II.
“It was designed with a flair and a panache and a swagger that’s more common to far bigger terminals,” the journalist Robert Klara wrote of the terminal in a 2002 American Heritage magazine article.
LCOR plans to restore those distinctive elements and take full advantage of the terminal’s location by replacing the cinder-block north wall with floor-to-ceiling glass, Mr. Barry said.
The $150 million restoration involves the terminal’s lower level as well. The area, which was flooded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is now closed off, could house services that appeal to Hoboken residents, like a farmer’s market, Mr. Singh said.
He said that New Jersey Transit envisioned the lower level as an extension of the park that runs along Hoboken’s waterfront.
The renovated upper level is not expected to appeal as much to regular commuters as it is to a new crowd with money to spend enjoying meals, drinks and entertainment on the waterfront, Mr. Singh said.
“We have to make money on this space to maintain this space,” he said