Jefferson Station

Story

Jefferson Station is an underground SEPTA Regional Rail station located on Market Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its official SEPTA address is 12th and Filbert streets. It is the easternmost of the three Center City stations on the SEPTA Regional Rail system, and is part of the Center City Commuter Connection, which connects the former Penn Central commuter lines with the former Reading Railroad commuter lines. The station opened in November 1984, is owned and maintained by SEPTA, and replaced the former Reading Terminal, under which a small part of the station sits. BuildingThe station is part of the Gallery at Market East, a shopping mall built as part of an urban renewal project in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are several entrances to the station, including several on the concourse level to the "Gallery II" part of the mall. After the Convention Center was opened, a new entrance was built in the Reading Terminal headhouse on Market Street.Architecturally, the design of Jefferson Station is integrated with the Gallery Mall, which features a number of stores and quick-service food facilities, including Tiffany's Bakery, which boasts state-of-the-art digital signage for the commuters passing through Jefferson Station. The newly renovated bakery uses television to display their original content as well as the SEPTA train timetable. Stainless steel and large plate-glass windows are a major design element throughout the station, with large color tile murals (depicting the four seasons) adorning the walls and the extensive use of tile for flooring. The upper seating area has recently been renovated with metal benches facing the windows that look down onto the tracks. The large windows are used both for exterior windows, where they admit light from street level down to track level like a clerestory, and for separating the concourse level from the track level. Because this is an underground station and the clerestory section is only a small part of the station, artificial lighting is used throughout the station.