"Sutphin Boulevard, south from Jamaica Avenue, showing this Jamaica business thoroughfare. The tall building on the right is the Long Island Railroad station, at the S.W. corner of Archer Avenue and the elevated is that of the Long Island Rail Road."

The first LIRR station in Jamaica opened in 1836 as a terminus and was renovated a number of times before being rebuilt completely in 1883. In 1912 that rebuilt station was demolished and a new station was built. The large brick building was designed by Kenneth Murchison, an architect of many large-scale railway stations on the east coast and, at least one, in Cuba.

The station building does not directly connect with any of the five platforms (and eight active tracks) but the station is one of the busiest in the country, seeing more than 200,000 weekday passengers.