| Philadelphia City Hall | |
|---|---|
 North face of Philadelphia City Hall in July 2019 | |
 Interactive map of Philadelphia City Hall | |
| Record height | |
| Tallest in the world from 1894 to 1908[I] | |
| Preceded by | Ulm Minster |
| Surpassed by | Singer Building |
| General information | |
| Status | Completed |
| Architectural style | Second Empire |
| Location | 1 Penn Square Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 39°57′8.62″N75°9′48.95″W / 39.9523944°N 75.1635972°W /39.9523944; -75.1635972 |
| Topped-out | 1894[1] occupied from 1877[1][2][3] |
| Completed | 1901; 124 years ago (1901)[1] |
| Governing body | Cherelle Parker,Mayor of Philadelphia (2024–present) |
| Height | |
| Antenna spire | 548 ft (167 m)[1] |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 9[4] |
| Floor area | 630,000 sq ft (59,000 m2)[5] |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | John McArthur Jr. Thomas U. Walter |
| Designated | December 16, 1976 |
| Reference no. | 75001206 |
| Designated | December 8, 1976 |
| Reference no. | 76001666 |
Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of theCity of Philadelphia in the U.S. state ofPennsylvania. Built in the ornateSecond Empire style, City Hall houses the chambers of thePhiladelphia City Council and the offices of theMayor of Philadelphia.[6][7]
This building is also acourthouse, serving as the seat of theFirst Judicial District of Pennsylvania. It houses the Civil Trial and Orphans' Court Divisions of theCourt of Common Pleas ofPhiladelphia County.[8][9][10] It also houses the Philadelphia facilities for theSupreme Court of Pennsylvania (which also holds session and accepts filings inHarrisburg andPittsburgh).[11]
Built using brick, white marble and limestone, Philadelphia City Hall is the world's largest free-standingmasonry building and was theworld's tallest habitable building upon its completion in 1894. It was designated as aNational Historic Landmark in 1976; in 2006, it was also named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by theAmerican Society of Civil Engineers.[12]
The building was designed by Scottish-born architectJohn McArthur Jr. (1823–1890), andThomas Ustick Walter (1804–1887).[13] in theFrench Second Empire style of architecture, and was constructed from 1871 to 1901 at a cost of $24 million dollars (late 19th century value of American money). The City Hall's tower was completed by 1894,[1] although the interior was not finished until 1901. Designed to be the world's tallest building, it was surpassed during the phase of construction by theWashington Monument (of Washington, D.C.), theEiffel Tower (in Paris, France), and theMole Antonelliana. The Mole Antonelliana was a few feet taller and was the tallest masonry (i.e. without the use of steel) building in the world until 1953. In that year a storm caused the spire to collapse and so the Philadelphia City Hall then became the tallest masonry building in the world (excluding monuments). Upon completion of its tower in 1894, it became the world's tallest habitable building.[2][3] It was also the first secular building to have this distinction, as all previous world's tallest buildings were religious structures, including European cathedrals and—for the previous 3,800 years—theGreat Pyramid of Giza; even the Mole Antonelliana was supposed to be a religious building—a synagogue—but then received a different use.
The location chosen was one of the five center city urban park squares dedicated by William Penn, that geometrically is the center to the other four squares withinCenter City renamed as Penn Square. City Hall is amasonry building whose weight isborne by granite and brick walls up to 22 ft (6.7 m) thick. The principal exterior materials arelimestone,granite, andmarble. The original design called for virtually no sculpture. The stonemason William Struthers and sculptorAlexander Milne Calder were responsible for the more than 250 sculptures, capturing artists, educators, and engineers who embodied American ideals and contributed to this country's genius.[14] The city spent a total of $24.6 million on the erection of the building between 1870 and 1904.[15]
At 548 ft (167 m), including the statue of city founderWilliam Penn atop its tower, City Hall was the tallesthabitable building in the world from 1894 to 1908. It remained the tallest in Pennsylvania until it was surpassed in 1932 by theGulf Tower inPittsburgh; it is now the 16th tallest. It was the tallest in Philadelphia until 1986 when the construction ofOne Liberty Place surpassed it,[16] ending the informalgentlemen's agreement that had limited the height of buildings in the city to no higher than the Penn statue.[17]
It was constructed over the time span from 1871 to 1901 and includes 700 rooms dedicated for uses of various governmental operations. The building structure used over 88 million bricks and thousands of tons of marble and granite.[18] With almost 700 rooms, City Hall is the largest municipal building in the United States and one of the largest in the world.[19] The building houses three branches of government: the city's executive branch (theMayor's Office), its legislature (thePhiladelphia City Council), and a substantial portion of the judicial activity in the city (the Civil Division and Orphan's Court of thePennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial District are housed there, as well as chambers for some criminal judges and some judges of thePhiladelphia Municipal Court).
It was thetallest clock tower in the world when it was completed; it was surpassed by theMetropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower in 1912, and is currently the 5th tallest building of this type. The tower features a clock face on each side that is 26 ft (7.9 m) in diameter.[20][21] The clock faces are larger in diameter than those onBig Ben which measure 23 ft (7 m).[22] City Hall's clock was designed by Warren Johnson and built in 1898.[23] The 1937Philadelphia Guide noted that "shortly after the clock was installed the city inaugurated a custom which still continues. Every evening at three minutes of nine the tower lights are turned off, and then turned on again on the hour. This enables those within observation distance, though unable to see the hands, to set their timepieces.[24] There are four bronze eagles, each weighing three tons with 12 ft (3.7 m) wingspans, perched above the tower's four clocks.[18]
City Hall'sobservation deck is located directly below the base of the statue, about 500 ft (150 m) above street level.[25] Once enclosed withchain-link fencing, the observation deck is now enclosed by glass. It is reached in a 6-person elevator whose glass panels allow visitors to see the interior of the ironsuperstructure that caps the tower and supports the statuary and clocks. 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 council investigated tearing down City Hall for a new building elsewhere, but abandoned the plan due to the high cost of the demolition.[26]
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.[27] 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.[28][29][30]
The building was voted 21st on theAmerican Institute of Architects' list of Americans' 150 favorite U.S. structures in 2007.[31]
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The center of municipal government building is topped by a 37 ft (11 m)bronze statue weighing 53,348 lb (24,198 kg)[1] of state and city founderWilliam Penn (1644–1718), one of the 250 sculptures created byAlexander Milne Calder (1846–1923), that adorn the building inside and out. The statue was cast at theTacony Iron Works ofNortheast Philadelphia and hoisted to the top of the tower in fourteen sections in 1894, seven years before the building was declared completed in 1901.[1] TheWilliam Penn statue is the tallest atop any building in the world.[1][32][33]
Despite its lofty perch, the city has mandated that the statue be cleaned about every decade / ten years to removecorrosion and reduce metal deterioration due toweathering, with the latest cleaning done in May 2017.[32] Penn's statue is hollow, and a narrow access tunnel through it from beneath in the stone / masonry and steel framing of the clock tower leads to a 22-inch-diameter (56 cm) hatch atop the hat.[34]
Artist / sculptor Calder wished the statue to face south towards theDelaware River andBay, so that its face would be lit by the sun most of the day, and the better to reveal the details of his work. But the statue in reality, actually faces to the northeast, towardsPenn Treaty Park in theFishtown section of the city, which commemorates the site where Penn signed a treaty with the local Native American tribe.[35]Pennsbury Manor, Penn's country home in Bucks County, is also located to the northeast.
By the terms of agentlemen's agreement that forbade any other structure later built in the city from rising above the hat on the famous William Penn statue, so for decades, the Philadelphia City Hall remained the tallest building in the city until it was surpassed by the skyscraperOne Liberty Place in 1986.[16][17] The abrogation of this municipal agreement in local folklore of the nicknamedCurse of Billy Penn, supposedly brought down a curse onto local professional sports teams.[36] Twice during the 1990s, the statue was partially clothed in amajor leaguesports team's uniform when they were in contention for a championship: aPhiladelphia Phillies baseball cap in 1993 and aPhiladelphia Flyersice hockey team jersey in 1997—both teams lost however.[37] The supposed curse ended 22 years later when the Philadelphia Phillies professionalMajor League Baseball team in theNational League won the2008 World Series, a year and four months after a small William Pennstatuette had been affixed to the final steel beam of theComcast Center during itstopping out ceremony in June 2007.[38] Another Penn statuette was placed on the topmost beam of theComcast Technology Center in November 2017,[39] and theEagles won theSuper Bowl a few months later.[40]
City Hall is situated on land that was reserved as apublic square upon the city's founding in 1682. Originally known as Centre Square—later renamed Penn Square[41]—it was used for public gatherings until the construction of City Hall began in 1871. Centre Square was one of the five original squares of Philadelphia laid out on the city grid byWilliam Penn. The square had been located at the geographic center of Penn's city plan, but theAct of Consolidation in 1854 created the much larger and coterminouscity and county of Philadelphia.[42] Though no longer at the exact center of the city, the square remains situated in the center of the historic area between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers; an area which is now calledCenter City.
Penn had intended that Centre Square be the central focus point where the major public buildings would be located, including those for government, religion, and education, as well as the central marketplace. However, the Delaware riverfront would remain the de facto economic and social heart of the city for more than a century.[43][44]
City Hall has been afilming location for several motion pictures includingRocky (1976),Blow Out (1981),Trading Places (1983),Philadelphia (1993),12 Monkeys (1995),National Treasure (2004),Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009),Law Abiding Citizen (2009), andLimitless (2011).[45]
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All Philadelphia City Council Stated Meetings and hearings take place in Council Chambers, located on the fourth floor of Philadelphia City Hall.
Note: click the 'Trivia & Fun Facts' link at left, then the 'Tower' link at top.
…hardly anyone lived west of Fourth Street before 1703 … Not until the mid-nineteenth century … 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.
| Preceded by Auditorium Theatre 2015 and 2016 | Venues of theNFL draft 2017 | Succeeded by AT&T Stadium 2018 |
| Records | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Tallest building in the world 1894–1908 548 ft (167 m) | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Tallest building in the United States 1894–1908 167 m | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Tallest building in the United States outside of New York City 1894–1924 167 m | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Tallest building in Pennsylvania 167 metres (548 ft) 1894–1932 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Tallest building in Philadelphia 167 metres (548 ft) 1894–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Topics | |
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