between
JSQ-Hoboken-33rd trains and
NWK-WTC trains The transportation center is built over a
cut through
Bergen Hill. The Bergen Hill cut was originally excavated in 1834–1838 by the
New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company, later part of the
Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), to access the
Hudson River waterfront. At the time, only one platform, an island platform in the center of the station, was in use. The Summit Avenue station was not complete until February 23, 1913, when two outer side platforms in a
Spanish solution opened, and an enclosed mezzanine opened. At the time, passengers traveling on the
33rd Street line alighted and boarded on the outer side platforms, while passengers traveling on the
Newark–Hudson Terminal line alighted and boarded on the center island platform. A bypass track for eastbound express trains was located to the south of the eastbound side platform. The district was renamed Journal Square on January 1, 1925, after the newspaper,
The Jersey Journal. Around that time, the Summit Avenue station was renovated and also rededicated as "Journal Square". The open-spandrel concrete
arch bridge carrying
Kennedy Boulevard and the station, built in 1926, is a pared-down version of a more ambitious elevated plaza scheme proposed by consulting engineer
Abraham Burton Cohen. Passageways were suspended from the arches to connect the railroad station to bus stops on the bridge deck above (the bus stops were later removed). The storage yards northeast of the station were also expanded. The number of tracks in the station was increased from three to six to accommodate terminating trains from 33rd Street, as well as both local and express trains from Newark. There were two island platforms serving the station's four inner tracks, allowing
cross-platform interchanges between Newark–Hudson Terminal and Journal Square–33rd Street trains, and bypass tracks for express trains that went around the four inner tracks. Though the cornerstone was installed on September 20, 1972, the transportation center itself was opened in stages in 1973, 1974, and 1975 during the late phases of the
Brutalist architecture movement. The renovated station was dedicated on October 17, 1975. A
statue of Jackie Robinson was dedicated at the center in 1998. Part of the ceiling at Journal Square fell onto the platform during the rush hour on August 8, 1983, killing two and injuring eight. The ceiling slab, a false ceiling that had been installed during the renovation ten years prior, had been observed to be sagging as early as that April. PATH began testing out a new contactless payment system called TAPP, similar to the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority's
OMNY system, at Journal Square and in December 2023. ==Station layout==