My I-photo Blog: 03/01/2009

I won't post anymore photos of city hall, but it is a really cool bldg and here's a little history.

Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 167 m (548 ft), including the statue, it is the world's tallest masonry building: the weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet (6.7 m) thick, rather than steel; the principal exterior materials are limestone, granite, and marble.

The exact height of City Hall is 547' 11-3/4", which has led to mock speculation among some Philadelphians about "what happened to the last quarter inch?", a reference to corruption in city government which was widespread in Philadelphia in earlier days.

It was the tallest habitable building (although surpassed by monuments) in the world from 1901 to 1908 and the tallest in Pennsylvania until 1932 when surpassed by the Gulf Tower. It remained the tallest building in Philadelphia until the construction of One Liberty Place (1984-1987) broke the informal "gentlemen's agreement" that limited the height of tall buildings in the city. It remains the tallest masonry building in the world.The building was designed by Scottish architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. Originally designed to be the world's tallest building, by the time it was completed it had already been surpassed by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower, though it was indeed the world's tallest habitable building at the time of opening. It also was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower, see above) to hold the record for world's tallest and also was the first secular building to hold this honor: all previous holders of the position of world's tallest were religious structures, whether European cathedrals or, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.

With close to 700 rooms, City Hall is the largest municipal building in the United States[dubious – discuss] and one of the largest in the World.[3] The building houses three branches of government, the Executive (Mayor's Office), the Legislative (City Council), and the Judicial Branch's Civil Courts (Court of Common Pleas).

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.

It is said that Calder wished the statue to face south so that its face would be lit by the sun most of the day, all the better to reveal the details that he had included in the work (from Hayes). Local legend has it that residents of the north side of the city paid a bribe to have it face them. A more credible reason (since it actually faces a little northeast) is that the statue faces Penn Treaty Park in the Fishtown section of the city, which commemorates the site where William Penn signed a treaty with the local Native American tribe. Yet another version for why the statue pointed generally north (from Craven) instead of south is that it was the current (1894) architect's way of showing displeasure with the style of the work; that by 1894 it was not in the current, popular Beaux-Arts style; that it was out of date even before it was placed on top of the building. A joke among Philadelphians that results from Penn's position is that when viewed from Ben Franklin Parkway the statue appears to be engaged in a lewd activity, due to the scroll in its hand. Starting in the 1990s when one of Philadelphia's four major sports teams were close to winning a championship, the statue was decorated with the jersey of that team.

The tower features clocks 26 feet (7.9 m) in diameter on all four sides of the metal portion of the tower. (larger than the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster). [1]

The observation deck located directly below the base of the statue, approximately 500 ft (152 m) above street level, offers visitors an expansive view of the city and its surroundings, and is free of admission charge as of 2008[update]. It is accessed via a 6-person elevator which has glass panels so visitors can see the wooden superstructure inside the tower. Stairs are also provided within the tower, but are only used for emergency exit. Once enclosed with chain link fence, the observation deck now uses glass as its enclosure.

Penn's statue is hollow, and a narrow access tunnel through it leads to a small (22-inch-diameter) hatch atop the hat.

For many years, City Hall remained the tallest building in Philadelphia under the terms of a "gentlemen's agreement" that forbade any structure from rising above the William Penn statue atop City Hall. In 1987, it lost this distinction when One Liberty Place was completed. (The breaking of this agreement is said to be the cause of the so-called Curse of Billy Penn, under the supposed influence of which no major-league Philadelphia sports team won a championship between 1983 and 2007.)