Category:Allentown Terminal Railroad Station

Located at 368 Hamilton Street, the Allentown Terminal Railroad Station was built in 1890. It was owned and operated by the Allentown Terminal Railroad Company, with was itself owned by the Reading Railroad and the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey leased the rights to the rail trackage that the station served.

Operations began at 4:30am on March 17th, 1890. For the next 77 years the station remained in operation, with trans heading for destinations such as Scranton, Harrisburg, Elizabeth New Jersey, and New York City, among many. The trains themselves had names like "Queen of the Valley", "Harrisburger", "Scranton Flyer", "The Bullet" and "Interstate Express" With the coming of World War I and World War II, the station was the scene of assembled troops bound for duty around the nation and around the world. The original Freedom Train stopped there in 1945 and it was one of President Harry Truman's campaign "Whistle Stops" in the 1948 presidential election.

As the Interstate Highway network grew and long-distance bus and airline service expanded, the number of railroad passengers declined drastically. Reading Railroad Allentown-Harrisburg passenger service was ended in June 1963. In April 1967, the New Jersey Central Railroad announced it would end service to Allentown later in the year. The conductors told the local press at the time this photo was taken that the reason for the cutback in passenger service to New York was, "The people were not patronizing the trains, and you can't run a train without passengers." With its departure, the Allentown Depot Station closed it's doors to passengers while dispatchers for the entire Pennsylvania Division of the Jersey Central Railroad from Scranton to Easton continued using it until 1972.

During the 1970s the station was unused, and the victim of vandalism and small fires. The unused rails were removed and Hamilton Street was repaved in the early 1970s. The freight office and siding, located along Race Street, just north of the passenger station, was torn down in 1976. In 1978, the Allentown Redevelopment board obtained the property from the bankrupt Allentown Terminal Railroad Co.

In April 1980 Richard E Phelan obtained the former railroad station from the ARB for $7,500. He obtained a zoning variance to turn it into a commercial restaurant. About $1,800,000 was invested in the property for a renovation, in which the structure was entirely gutted out. The roof was removed nd replaced and all of the internal walls were sandblasted and scrubbed. The railroad tower, that contained a Seth Thomas clock was scraped off and it's internal works repaired. The renovated structure was turned into a restaurant that had seating for about 500 persons. The interior contained stained glass, wroght iron fixtures, etched windows and hand-carved wood paneling. A 14-foot breakfront for the station which came from a New York City auction house was obtained.

It was reopened in March 1981 named the "Gingerbread Man" restaurant, with a staff of 80 persons. It was not, however, a success and the property was put up for sale in November of the same year, and closed in March 1982. It reopened as "The Depot" in September 1987 under new ownership and a $400,000 renovation, but it closed again in May 1988. In November of that year, it reopened as the B & G station, which operated until the end of December 1996 when it closed again after nearly eight years. In January 1998, it again reopened, this time as Jillian's Billiard Café, a sports video café. Jillian's closed in October 2000. Lastly the facility reopened as Banana Joe's nightclub in June 2001. The nightclub had a shooting in September 2007, and as a result lost its liquor license. It was subsequently ordered closed and has never reopened.

It remains closed, and deteriorating with an uncertain future.

Camera location	40° 36′ 16″ N, 75° 27′ 44″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.604444; -75.462222