History

The bank was chartered on January 19, 1876 to finance the Centennial Exposition

Centennial Exposition

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...

.

The bank's headquarters building, designed by noted Philadelphia architect Frank Furness

Frank Furness

Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...

, was completed in April 1876. The building's interior was modified in 1893, and again in 1899, when Philadelphia architect Frank Miles Day

Frank Miles Day

Frank Miles Day was a Philadelphia-based architect who specialized in residences and academic buildings. In 1883, he graduated from the Towne School of the University of Pennsylvania, and traveled to Europe. In England, he apprenticed under two architects, and won the 1885 prize from the...

 built an addition in the rear in keeping with Furness's style. The interior was again modified in 1956, when it came to occupied by the First Pennsylvania Bank, by splitting the single floor into two, while the exterior was simplified. The building was acquired by Drexel University

Drexel University

Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...

 and renovated in 2000-2002. In 2002, the building was rededicated as the Paul Peck Alumni Center of Drexel University.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on March 11, 1971.

External links

• Centennial National Bank at Bryn Mawr College
  Bryn Mawr College
  Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
  
  
• Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
• Listing and photograph at the Historic American Buildings Survey
  Historic American Buildings Survey
  The Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...
  
  
• The Peck Alumni Center at Drexel University