CITY HALL
City Hall Tours: 215/686-2840
Broad and Market Streets

Constructed between 1871 and 1901, City Hall has 14.5 acres of floor space (642 rooms with lavish public spaces) and is the largest municipal building in the country. It was designed in the Second Empire style by John McArthur, Jr., (with Thomas Ustick Walter) and includes hundreds of exterior sculptures by Alexander Milne Calder. Until 1987, a gentlemen's agreement kept all buildings in Center City below City Hall's tower-topping, 37-foot-high statue of William Penn. (see Tour Stop 27)

PSFS BUILDING
(now Loews Philadelphia Hotel)
12th and Market Streets

Completed in 1932, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society's new headquarters emerged as the first International Style skyscraper in the United States. Designed just before the Great Depression by George Howe and William Lescaze, its avant-garde characteristics and expensive materials made a striking statement from a conservative banking establishment. In 2000, the building was converted to a hotel, with its architectural integrity intact. A restaurant occupies the former retail space on the first floor; the upper-level, high-ceilinged space where bank transactions occurred, is now a ballroom.

JOHN WANAMAKER'S DEPARTMENT STORE
(now Lord & Taylor)
1300 Market Street

Designed by Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham to serve as one of the first department stores in the country, the John Wanamaker building was completed in 1911. The selling floors (nearly two million square feet) were organized around a five-story high central court; its famous 30,000-pipe organ is still in operation. In 1991, portions of the interior were renovated (by architects and interior designers Ewing Cole Cherry Brott), converting the upper floors to commercial office space.

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM IN PHILADELPHIA
www.aampmuseum.org
215/574-0380
7th and Arch Streets

Founded in 1976, in celebration of the United States Bicentennial, the African American Museum in Philadelphia is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the material and intellectual culture of African Americans in Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Americas. Its 500,000-object collection includes fine arts, folk arts, photography, and textiles. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, and Easter.

Interior Grand Court in former John Wanamaker Department Store,
now Lord & Taylor. www.wanamakerorgan.com

PSFS Building, c. 1984. The retail store, bank, and commercial-office
tower are now components of a hotel.