Philadelphia City Hall ★5.0

How to Get There

Head south on S 15th St toward S Penn Square. S 15th St turns slightly left and becomes S Penn Square.

Overview

Philadelphia City Hall is a Second Empire landmark at Penn Square, the world's largest free-standing masonry building and home to the mayor's office and City Council. Designed by John McArthur Jr. and Thomas Ustick Walter and built from 1871 to 1901 of brick, marble, and limestone, it is a National Historic Landmark (1976). At 548 feet it was the world's tallest habitable building from 1894 to 1908.

Highlights

• William Penn statue: a 37-foot bronze on top of the tower, one of 250 sculptures by Alexander Milne Calder on the building
• Observation deck: about 500 feet up, reached by a glass-panel elevator, with views over Center City
• Clock tower: clock faces 26 feet across, larger than Big Ben's
• Penn Square: the building stands on William Penn's original Centre Square

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Philadelphia City Hall", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0