Urbahn provided planning and architectural design services to improve one of the LIRR’s busiest stations. The existing station entrances were within dark and unkempt alleys, and the configuration had split the entrances to the two platforms causing unclear wayfinding and poor station identity. While the initial scope of work included elevator access to each of the two platforms, early on the design team made an important discovery: a commercial building along Main Street was unoccupied. On our recommendation, the LIRR acquired this site to create a Manhattan bound entry plaza. The project was thereby reborn in its current iteration.
The project involved the removal of the existing building to create a new plaza, with an elevator, new stair, ticket booth, and employee facilities, while overhauling the entrance off of 40th Road. The Long Island bound entrance includes removal of decrepit structures, a new elevator, stair and refurbished plaza. Both entrances received new ticket vending machines, and are visually tied together with new canopies and signage that reinforces LIRR brand identity.