The railroad commissioned New York architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, who executed the design in a neoclassical style reminiscent of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he had been trained.

The tiles are styled after the work of American artist Clark Greenwood Voorhees, and represent scenes along the DL&W's Phoebe Snow main line from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York.

[10] During the early 1980s, as Scranton struggled with 13 percent unemployment and a slumping economy, city leaders conceived of a redeveloped station as tourist attraction and rallying point.

Its redevelopment, the "linchpin of Scranton's downtown revitalization program", was ultimately spearheaded by The Erie Lackawanna Restoration Associates, a group of private investors, and funded to the tune of $13 million through a combination of federal, state, and municipal money, plus donations from banks and other local businesses.

[5] The building was renovated as a hotel, furnished by Bethlehem Furniture Manufacturing Corp., and renamed The Hilton at Lackawanna Station.

[12] The building reopened on New Year's Eve 1983,[6] ushered back to life by some 650 partygoers dancing to the Guy Lombardo Orchestra under the direction of Art Mooney.

DanMar ultimately sold the building for $7 million to Akshar Lackawanna Station Hospitality LP, a unit of El Centro, Calif.-based Calvin Investments LLC, which owned about a dozen hotels at the time.

[16] The hotel was the setting, though not the actual filming location, for "Dwight's Speech" in the American television show The Office.