Philadelphia City Hall

Philadelphia City Hall, located at 1 Penn Square, is the seat of government for the city of Philadelphia, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

At 548 ft (167 m), including the statue of city founder William Penn atop it, it was the tallest habitable building in the world from 1894 to 1908. It remained the tallest in Pennsylvania until it was surpassed in 1932 by the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh; it was the tallest in Philadelphia until the construction of One Liberty Place (1984–87) ended the informal gentlemen's agreement that limited the height of buildings in the city. Today, it is the state's 16th-tallest building.

City Hall has been the world's tallest masonry building since at least the 1953 collapse of the pinnacle of the Mole Antonelliana in Turin.^[3][4] Its weight is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet (6.7 m) thick. The principal exterior materials are limestone, granite, and marble.

In 2007, the building was voted #21 on the American Institute of Architects' list of Americans' 150 favorite U.S. structures.^[5]

History and description

Under construction, 1881

William Penn statue before being set atop City Hall tower

The N. Broad Street arcade leading to the building's courtyard

The building was designed by Scottish-born architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. City Hall was topped off in 1894, although the interior wasn't finished until 1901. Designed to be the world's tallest building, it was surpassed during construction by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower, though it was at completion the world's tallest habitable building. It was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower) to be the world's tallest and also was the first secular habitable building to have this record: all previous world's tallest buildings were religious structures, including European cathedrals and, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.

With almost 700 rooms, City Hall is the largest municipal building in the United States.^[6] The building houses three branches of government, playing host to the city's executive branch (the Mayor's Office), its legislature (the Philadelphia City Council), and a substantial portion of the judicial activity in the city (with the Civil Division and Orphan's Court of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial District being housed there, as well as chambers for some criminal judges and some judges of the Philadelphia Municipal Court).

William Penn Statue

The building is topped by an 11.3 m (37 ft), 27-ton bronze statue of city founder William Penn, one of 250 sculptures created by Alexander Milne Calder that adorn the building inside and out. The statue is the tallest atop any building in the world.

Calder wished the statue to face south so that its face would be lit by the sun most of the day, the better to reveal the details of his work. The statue actually faces northeast, towards Penn Treaty Park in the Fishtown section of the city, which commemorates the site where William Penn signed a treaty with the local Native Americans tribe.^[7] Beyond Penn Treaty Park is Pennsbury Manor, Penn's country home in Bucks County. Yet another version for why the statue pointed generally north instead of south is that it was the current architect's method of showing displeasure with the style of the work. By 1894, the statue's design was not in the current, popular Beaux-Arts style and was considered out-of-date even before it was placed on top of the building. Penn's statue is hollow, and a narrow access tunnel through it leads to a small (22-inch-diameter (56 cm)) hatch atop the hat.

By the terms of a gentlemen's agreement that forbade any structure from rising above the brim of the hat on the William Penn statue, Philadelphia City Hall remained the tallest building in the city until it was surpassed by One Liberty Place in 1987. The abrogation of this agreement supposedly brought a curse onto local sports teams.

During the 1990s, whenever one of Philadelphia's four major sports teams was in contention for a championship, the statue was decorated with the jersey or hat of that team.

Other Features and history

The tower features clocks 8 m (26 ft) in diameter on all four sides of the metal portion of the tower (larger than the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster).^[8] This clock was designed by Warren Johnson.

City Hall's observation deck is located directly below the base of the statue, about 152 m (499 ft) above street level. Once enclosed with chain link fence, the observation deck is now enclosed by glass. It is reached in a 6-person elevator whose glass panels allow visitors to see the wooden superstructure that supports the tower. Stairs within the tower are only used for emergency exit. The ornamentation of the tower has been simplified; the huge garlands that festooned the top panels of the tower were removed.

In the 1950s, the city fathers investigated tearing down City Hall for a new building elsewhere. They found that the demolition would have bankrupted the city due to the building's masonry construction.

Beginning in 1992, Philadelphia City Hall underwent a comprehensive exterior restoration, planned and supervised by the Historical Preservation Studio of Vitetta Architects & Engineers, headed by renowned historical preservation architect, Hyman Myers.^[9] The majority of the restoration was completed by 2007, although some work has continued, including the installation of four new ornamental courtyard gates, based on an original architectural sketch, in December, 2015.^[10][11][12]

City Hall became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. In 2006, it was also named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.^[13]

Site

The south facade as seen from S. Broad Street at Locust Street (2013)

The north facade as seen from N. Broad Street at Arch St. (2016)

City Hall is built on the area designated by William Penn as Centre Square. It was a public square from the city's founding in 1682 until the construction of City Hall began upon the site in 1871. It was one of the five original squares of Philadelphia laid out on the city grid by Penn.^[14] It lay at the geographic heart of the city from 1682 until the Act of Consolidation, 1854 (although it was never the social heart of the city during that long period).

Penn planned for Centre Square to be:

a central square or plaza of ten acres to be bordered by the principal public buildings, such as the Quaker meetinghouse, the state house, the market house, and the schoolhouse. Despite the two riverfronts [Delaware and Schuylkill], Penn's city had an inward-facing design, focusing on this central plaza.^[15]

However, the Delaware riverfront would remain the de facto economic and social heart of the city for more than a century.

[…] hardly anyone lived west of Fourth Street before 1703. Consequently Penn's design of a center square as the hub of his community had to be abandoned. The large Friends meeting house which was built in 1685 at the midpoint between the rivers was dismantled in 1702. Efforts to develop the Schuylkill waterfront likewise collapsed. Of the merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen who can be identified as living in Philadelphia around 1690, 123 lived on the Delaware side of town and only 6 on the Schuylkill side. One of the latter, a tailor named William Boulding, complained that he had invested most of his capital in his Schuylkill lot, 'so that he cannot, as others have done, Remove from the same.' Not until the mid-nineteenth century, long after the city had spilled northward and southward in an arc along the Delaware miles beyond its original limits, was the Schuylkill waterfront fully developed. Nor was Centre Square restored as the heart of Philadelphia until the construction of City Hall began in 1871.^[15]

The west side of the original square had returned to green space in 2014 as Dilworth Park.

See also

• Philadelphia portal
• List of tallest buildings in Philadelphia
• Philadelphia City Council
• Philadelphia
• Parliament Building, Quebec City: Built at approximately the same time in the same style, leading to a striking similarity.
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Center City, Philadelphia

References

Notes

Further reading

• Gurney, George, Sculpture of a City—Philadelphia's Treasures in Bronze and Stone, Fairmount Park Association, Walker Publishing Co., Inc., New York, NY, 1974.
• Hayes, Margaret Calder, Three Alexander Calders: A Family Memoir by Margaret Calder Hayes, Paul S. Eriksson, publisher, Middlebury, Vermont, 1977.
• Lewis, Michael J. "‘Silent, Weird, Beautiful’: Philadelphia City Hall," Nineteenth Century, vol. 11, nos. 3 and 4 (1992), pp. 13–21

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philadelphia City Hall.

• Official site
• Philadelphia City Hall at skyscraperpage.com
• Philadelphia City Hall at aviewoncities.com
• Philadelphia City Hall at CityMayors.com
• Philadelphia City Hall – historical information from Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
• Google Street View
• "Layer Cake (City Hall)" by James G. Mundie

Articles and topics related to Philadelphia City Hall
Records Preceded by Ulm Minster Tallest building in the world 1901–1908 548 ft (167 m) Succeeded by Singer Building Preceded by Park Row Building Tallest building in the United States 1901–1908 167 m Succeeded by Singer Building Preceded by Milwaukee City Hall Tallest building in the United States outside of New York City 1901–1924 167 m Succeeded by Chicago Temple Building Timeline of tallest buildings in Philadelphia Independence Hall (41 m) (1748) Christ Church, Philadelphia (60 m) (1754) Tenth Presbyterian Church (76 m) (1856) North American Building (81 m) (1900) Philadelphia City Hall (167 m) (1901) One Liberty Place (288 m) (1987) Comcast Center (297 m) (2008) Timeline of tallest buildings in Pennsylvania Independence Hall (41 m) (1748) North American Building (81 m) (1900) Philadelphia City Hall (167 m) (1901) Gulf Tower (177 m) (1932) U.S. Steel Tower (256 m) (1970) One Liberty Place (288 m) (1987) Comcast Center (297 m) (2008) Skyscrapers in Philadelphia Current Comcast Center One Liberty Place Two Liberty Place BNY Mellon Center Three Logan Square G. Fred DiBona Jr. Building One Commerce Square Two Commerce Square Philadelphia City Hall The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton 1818 Market Street The St. James Loews Philadelphia Hotel PNC Bank Building Centre Square II Five Penn Center Murano One South Broad Cira Centre 2000 Market Street Two Logan Square 1700 Market evo at Cira Centre South 1835 Market Street Centre Square I Aramark Tower Wells Fargo Building 1706 Rittenhouse One Logan Square The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia Lewis Tower PECO Building Under construction Comcast Technology Center FMC Tower at Cira Centre South Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Ambulatory Care Center One Riverside 1919 Market Street 1601 Vine Street 1213 Walnut Street Demolished One Meridian Plaza Approved W Hotel Philadelphia 3601 Market Street Eastern Tower Community Center 38th and Chestnut Proposed Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Schuylkill Ave. expansion 1911 Walnut See also: Tallest buildings in Philadelphia Architecture of Philadelphia City of Philadelphia Nickname(s): City of Brotherly Love Topics History Timeline Architecture Bibliography Companies Cuisine Culture Demographics Economy Education Media Music Notable people Sites of interest Historic Landmarks Skyscrapers Transit Government City Hall Mayors City Council Airport Fire Department Free Library Mint Police Department School district Sister cities Neighborhoods Center City North Philadelphia Lower North Upper North Northwest Northeast Philadelphia South Philadelphia Southwest Philadelphia West Philadelphia Museums Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University African American Museum in Philadelphia American Philosophical Society American Swedish Historical Museum Athenaeum of Philadelphia Barnes Foundation Bartram's Garden Belmont Mansion Betsy Ross House Chemical Heritage Foundation Civil War Museum Cliveden Eastern State Penitentiary Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site Elfreth's Alley Fabric Workshop and Museum Fairmount Water Works Fort Mifflin Franklin Institute Germantown White House Glen Foerd on the Delaware Grand Army of the Republic Civil War Museum and Library Grumblethorpe Hill-Physick-Keith House Historic Strawberry Mansion Historical Society of Frankford Historical Society of Pennsylvania Independence National Historical Park Independence Seaport Museum Insectarium Institute of Contemporary Art John Johnson House John Ruan House La Salle University Art Museum Lemon Hill Marian Anderson Residence Museum Masonic Temple, Library, and Museum Museum of the American Revolution Mütter Museum National Constitution Center National Liberty Museum National Museum of American Jewish History Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Philadelphia History Museum Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia's Magic Gardens Please Touch Museum Powel House RittenhouseTown Rodin Museum Rosenbach Museum & Library Ryerss Museum and Library Shofuso Japanese House and Garden Stenton Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Wagner Free Institute of Science Woodmere Art Museum Wyck House Sports 76ers Eagles Flyers Phillies Soul Union Squares Centre Franklin Logan Rittenhouse Washington Wards 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 Related articles Delaware Valley Independence Hall Liberty Bell Philadelphia English Category Commons Portal U.S. National Register of Historic Places Topics Architectural style categories Contributing property Historic district History of the National Register of Historic Places Keeper of the Register National Park Service Property types Lists by states Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Lists by insular areas American Samoa Guam Minor Outlying Islands Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico Virgin Islands Lists by associated states Federated States of Micronesia Marshall Islands Palau Other areas District of Columbia Morocco Portal WikiProject