One South Broad
Encyclopedia
One South Broad, also known as the Lincoln-Liberty Building or PNB Building, is a 28-story
472 feet (143.9 m) office tower in Center City
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, United States. The art deco
tower, designed by architect John Torrey Windrim
as an annex for Wanamaker's
department store, was completed in 1932. Wanamaker's Men's Store opened in the first seven floors of the building, which is located a block from Wanamaker's main store, and was intended to rival European department stores with its size and selection. In 1952, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) bought the building and converted it into offices and banking space. The building's bell tower is decorated on all four sides with PNB's initials in stainless steel
16 feet (4.9 m) tall; the signs remain despite the bank's later renaming and several mergers. Wells Fargo
is the main tenant, occupying almost half the building. The former banking space at street level was converted to retail and restaurant space in 2000.
Containing 465000 square feet (43,199.9 m²) of space, One South Broad features a 3-story gallery lobby that connects to the Widener Building, adjacent to the south. The 24th and 25th floors originally featured a luxurious penthouse
designed for Rodman Wanamaker
and his wife; it was converted to office use in 2000 by independent advertising agency Red Tettemer + Partners. The tower houses the 17-ton Founder's Bell, one of the largest in the world, a tribute to John Wanamaker
by his son Rodman; listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, the bell is rung hourly, except for Sundays.
. Among the businesses constructing their own skyscrapers was Wanamaker's department store
. Under direction of Wanamaker President William L. Nevin, Wanamaker's decided to expand its Philadelphia store by constructing a new building that would contain a store catering to the "Philadelphia gentleman". Nevin directed Wanamaker's to buy property on South Broad Street
across the street from Philadelphia City Hall
. The land was the site of two late-19th-century 13-story
high-rises. On the corner of Broad and Penn Square stood the Lincoln Building, originally called the Betz Building. South of that stood the Liberty Building on the corner of Broad and Chestnut Street
s. Both buildings were demolished in 1926 to make way for the Lincoln-Liberty Building.
The Lincoln-Liberty Building, completed in 1932, was intended to partly house a large men's department store and offices. The building's cornerstone
was set on October 1, 1932 with a ceremony attended by William L. Nevin and Wanamaker executives from New York City, Paris and London. The Wanamaker Men's Store opened on October 12, 1932, with four Wanamaker buglers
blowing a reveille
and the ringing of the building's Founders Bell. Opening during the Great Depression
, Nevin said the new building was a sign of the store's faith that the economy would improve. Intended to rival European department stores in size and selection, the men's store ordered US$2,000,000 worth of merchandise and was the largest store of its kind in the world. As early as 1939 there were rumors the men's store would close, but Wanamaker's would not close the store unless a replacement tenant would agree to rent the space. When a new tenant was ready to take the store's place in the 1950s, the men's store was relocated to the Wanamaker Building down the street.
In the early 1950s, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) needed to expand into a larger space than it currently occupied. On November 3, 1952, the bank bought the Lincoln-Liberty Building for US$8,750,000. PNB president Frederic A. Potts said, "The purchase of this building will enable the Philadelphia National Bank more adequately and efficiently to support the large-scale industrial and commercial expansion under way in this city." The bank spent millions of dollars modernizing the building and converting the former department store floors to banking space. Among the changes was the addition of a sign with the bank's initials in 1955. The bank officially opened in what was now called the PNB Building on January 16, 1956. The opening included turning on a rooftop weather indicator and celebration of the 250th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin
's birth.
The building was owned by the PNB and later its parent company CoreStates until it was sold to the JPMorgan Strategic Property Fund in 1996 for almost US$28.5 million. In 1998 the building's second-largest tenant, law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath
, left for One Logan Square
. The resulting vacancy prompted the owners to renovate the building, renamed One South Broad, at a cost of US$10 million. Renovations included modernizing the elevators, security and safety systems and converting the lower floors to retail and restaurant space. The renovations took eighteen months and One South Broad was officially rededicated on May 3, 2000.
In April, 2003 JPMorgan sold One South Broad to real-estate investor David Werner for US$48 million. Ninety-percent occupied in 2003, One Broad Street's largest tenant was Wachovia
. Wachovia had gained office space in the tower after merging with First Union Corporation, which had merged with CoreStates in 1998. In 2006 Wachovia re-negotiated its lease, which was set to expire in 2010. After looking at other potential space in Center City, Wachovia made a deal to stay in One South Broad and three nearby properties, the Witherspoon Building, Wells Fargo Building, and the neighboring Widener Building, until the 2020s.
office tower on south Broad Street in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designed by architect John Torrey Windrim
, the skyscraper contains 465000 square feet (43,199.9 m²) of space. One South Broad originally had an ornate lower facade
with a lot of detail and fluting
that was removed in the 1950s renovation. Philadelphia National Bank's renovations included the addition of granite
black slabs on the street level facade. These were removed in the 2000 renovation and replaced with imported Italian granite to better match the skyscraper's original architecture. The 2000 renovation also created a new entrance on the building's Broad Street front, which leads to a three-story gallery lobby. The lobby was expanded by demolishing a wall and connecting it to the lobby of the neighboring Widener Building.
Containing 9000 square feet (836.1 m²) each, the 24th and 25th floors were used as a penthouse apartment
for Rodman Wanamaker
, consisting of five bedrooms, six baths, and outdoor terraces. The rooms featured hardwood floors, marble fireplaces, and detailed cast-plaster crown molding
. Originally the penthouse apartment was to be for Rodman Wanamaker and his wife but Wanamaker died in 1928 before the building was completed. Rodman Wanamaker's wife lived there only briefly, as she did not like the ringing bell in the tower overhead. The penthouse floors were converted to office use in 2000 by creative agency Red Tettemer + Partners. The firm Agoos/Lovera Architects modernized the basic office space on the 24th floor while preserving the ornate molding and materials that decorate the rest of the former penthouse space.
The Philadelphia National Bank's initials still adorn the top of the building, surrounding the top of the structure's bell tower. The letters, which are made of 16 feet (4.9 m) stainless steel
, each weigh 3000 pounds (1,360.8 kg). Until the 1970s, PNB used the sign to forecast weather by lighting the letters in red to indicate a warming trend, or green to predict the opposite. Wachovia considered removing the PNB sign in 2003 to replace it with its own signage, but, in response, some Philadelphians expressed nostalgia for the name of the former Philadelphia institution and hoped the sign would stay. While the sign has not been replaced, the Philadelphia Historical Commission has said that the sign is not an integral part of the building's design or as significant to the city as the nearby PSFS Building's
sign.
, founder of the department store. Cast in the United Kingdom, the bell is 9 in 6 in (2.9 m) at the rim and 7 in 9 in (2.36 m) high and is one of the largest bells in the world. The bell was brought in 1926 by the Cunard
liner Ascania to New York City, from which it was conveyed to Philadelphia by rail. The bell was carried on a flatcar
and had clearance of only 2 inches (5.1 cm) in some of the tunnels the train passed through.
Tuned to a low D bass clef
, the bell's original home was the Wanamaker Building, a block from One South Broad. It hung 325 feet (99.1 m) above the street in a specially built tower on the building's roof. Hung on December 23, 1926, the bell was first rung on New Year's Eve
of that year. The bell is rung every hour, except on Sundays. The bell was originally intended to swing in the tower on top of One South Broad, but when it was it shook the building. A hammer driven by a 230-volt electric motor was later installed and currently rings the bell. The ringing of the bell, which can be heard for 25 miles (40.2 km), is often mistakenly assumed to come from City Hall
's clock tower across the street.
Philadelphia Orchestra
conductor Leopold Stokowski
wrote in 1962 that the bell had "one of the finest sounds I have heard anywhere in America, Europe or Russia." In June 2000 the Founder's Bell was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
. Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia in 2008, is One Broad Street's main tenant, occupying about half the building. Other tenants include various law firms, advertising firm Nitrogen US, public relations firm Tonic Life Communications, consulting company Electronic Ink, and the advertising agency Red Tettemer + Partners. Past tenants have included Sylvania Electric Products
, law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, and advertising and public relations firm Earle Palmer Brown.
The street-level space was converted into a bank once PNB bought the building. The bank branch closed in the 1990s and was converted into two roughly 8000 square feet (743.2 m²) areas intended for retail or restaurant use. A McCormick & Schmick's
restaurant opened in the Broad-Street–Penn-Square corner in 2001. In late 2002, the Broad and Chestnut Streets corner was occupied by a Borders
bookstore, which moved into the two-story-plus-mezzanine 27000 square feet (2,508.4 m²) space after vacating the 1727 Walnut Street
location it had occupied since 1990. Borders closed its store in 2011.
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
472 feet (143.9 m) office tower in Center City
Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, or Downtown Philadelphia includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As of 2005, its population of over 88,000 made it the third most populous downtown in the United States, after New York City's and Chicago's...
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, United States. The art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
tower, designed by architect John Torrey Windrim
John T. Windrim
John Torrey Windrim was an American architect.He trained in the office of his father, architect James H. Windrim. He was elected to the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1901, and became a Fellow of the Institute in 1926...
as an annex for Wanamaker's
Wanamaker's
Wanamaker's department store was the first department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the first department stores in the United States. At its zenith in the early 20th century, there were two major Wanamaker department stores, one in Philadelphia and one in New York City at Broadway...
department store, was completed in 1932. Wanamaker's Men's Store opened in the first seven floors of the building, which is located a block from Wanamaker's main store, and was intended to rival European department stores with its size and selection. In 1952, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) bought the building and converted it into offices and banking space. The building's bell tower is decorated on all four sides with PNB's initials in stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
16 feet (4.9 m) tall; the signs remain despite the bank's later renaming and several mergers. Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
is the main tenant, occupying almost half the building. The former banking space at street level was converted to retail and restaurant space in 2000.
Containing 465000 square feet (43,199.9 m²) of space, One South Broad features a 3-story gallery lobby that connects to the Widener Building, adjacent to the south. The 24th and 25th floors originally featured a luxurious penthouse
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
designed for Rodman Wanamaker
Rodman Wanamaker
Lewis Rodman Wanamaker was a Republican and was a Presidential Elector for Pennsylvania in 1916. Wanamaker created aviation history by financing a two plane experimental seaplane class in response to a prize contest announcement by London's The Daily Mail newspaper in 1913 – the flying boat...
and his wife; it was converted to office use in 2000 by independent advertising agency Red Tettemer + Partners. The tower houses the 17-ton Founder's Bell, one of the largest in the world, a tribute to John Wanamaker
John Wanamaker
John Wanamaker was a United States merchant, religious leader, civic and political figure, considered by some to be the father of modern advertising and a "pioneer in marketing." Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Biography:He was born on July 11, 1838.He opened his first store in...
by his son Rodman; listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, the bell is rung hourly, except for Sundays.
History
In the late 1920s, numerous high-rises were being built in Center City PhiladelphiaCenter City, Philadelphia
Center City, or Downtown Philadelphia includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As of 2005, its population of over 88,000 made it the third most populous downtown in the United States, after New York City's and Chicago's...
. Among the businesses constructing their own skyscrapers was Wanamaker's department store
Wanamaker's
Wanamaker's department store was the first department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the first department stores in the United States. At its zenith in the early 20th century, there were two major Wanamaker department stores, one in Philadelphia and one in New York City at Broadway...
. Under direction of Wanamaker President William L. Nevin, Wanamaker's decided to expand its Philadelphia store by constructing a new building that would contain a store catering to the "Philadelphia gentleman". Nevin directed Wanamaker's to buy property on South Broad Street
Broad Street (Philadelphia)
Broad Street is a major arterial street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is nearly 13 miles long.It is Pennsylvania Route 611 along its entire length with the exception of its northernmost part between Old York Road and Pennsylvania Route 309 and the southernmost part south of Interstate 95...
across the street from Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At , including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin...
. The land was the site of two late-19th-century 13-story
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
high-rises. On the corner of Broad and Penn Square stood the Lincoln Building, originally called the Betz Building. South of that stood the Liberty Building on the corner of Broad and Chestnut Street
Chestnut Street (Philadelphia)
Chestnut Street is a major historic street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally named Wynne Street because Thomas Wynne's home was there. William Penn renamed it Chestnut Street in 1684. It runs east–west from the Delaware River waterfront in downtown Philadelphia through Center City and West...
s. Both buildings were demolished in 1926 to make way for the Lincoln-Liberty Building.
The Lincoln-Liberty Building, completed in 1932, was intended to partly house a large men's department store and offices. The building's cornerstone
Cornerstone
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...
was set on October 1, 1932 with a ceremony attended by William L. Nevin and Wanamaker executives from New York City, Paris and London. The Wanamaker Men's Store opened on October 12, 1932, with four Wanamaker buglers
Bugle (instrument)
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series...
blowing a reveille
Reveille
"Reveille" is a bugle call, trumpet call or pipes call most often associated with the military or summer camp; it is chiefly used to wake military personnel at sunrise...
and the ringing of the building's Founders Bell. Opening during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Nevin said the new building was a sign of the store's faith that the economy would improve. Intended to rival European department stores in size and selection, the men's store ordered US$2,000,000 worth of merchandise and was the largest store of its kind in the world. As early as 1939 there were rumors the men's store would close, but Wanamaker's would not close the store unless a replacement tenant would agree to rent the space. When a new tenant was ready to take the store's place in the 1950s, the men's store was relocated to the Wanamaker Building down the street.
In the early 1950s, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) needed to expand into a larger space than it currently occupied. On November 3, 1952, the bank bought the Lincoln-Liberty Building for US$8,750,000. PNB president Frederic A. Potts said, "The purchase of this building will enable the Philadelphia National Bank more adequately and efficiently to support the large-scale industrial and commercial expansion under way in this city." The bank spent millions of dollars modernizing the building and converting the former department store floors to banking space. Among the changes was the addition of a sign with the bank's initials in 1955. The bank officially opened in what was now called the PNB Building on January 16, 1956. The opening included turning on a rooftop weather indicator and celebration of the 250th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
's birth.
The building was owned by the PNB and later its parent company CoreStates until it was sold to the JPMorgan Strategic Property Fund in 1996 for almost US$28.5 million. In 1998 the building's second-largest tenant, law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath
Drinker Biddle & Reath
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP is a national law firm founded in Philadelphia in 1849 by John Christian Bullitt. The firm has 650 lawyers located in 11 offices in the United States: Philadelphia; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Florham Park; Princeton; New York City; Albany; Los Angeles; San Francisco;...
, left for One Logan Square
One Logan Square
One Logan Square is a high-rise building located in the Logan Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The building stands at 400 ft with 31 floors, and was completed in 1983. It is currently the 25th-tallest building in Philadelphia...
. The resulting vacancy prompted the owners to renovate the building, renamed One South Broad, at a cost of US$10 million. Renovations included modernizing the elevators, security and safety systems and converting the lower floors to retail and restaurant space. The renovations took eighteen months and One South Broad was officially rededicated on May 3, 2000.
In April, 2003 JPMorgan sold One South Broad to real-estate investor David Werner for US$48 million. Ninety-percent occupied in 2003, One Broad Street's largest tenant was Wachovia
Wachovia
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States based on total assets...
. Wachovia had gained office space in the tower after merging with First Union Corporation, which had merged with CoreStates in 1998. In 2006 Wachovia re-negotiated its lease, which was set to expire in 2010. After looking at other potential space in Center City, Wachovia made a deal to stay in One South Broad and three nearby properties, the Witherspoon Building, Wells Fargo Building, and the neighboring Widener Building, until the 2020s.
Architecture
One South Broad is a 28-story 472 feet (143.9 m) art decoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
office tower on south Broad Street in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designed by architect John Torrey Windrim
John T. Windrim
John Torrey Windrim was an American architect.He trained in the office of his father, architect James H. Windrim. He was elected to the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1901, and became a Fellow of the Institute in 1926...
, the skyscraper contains 465000 square feet (43,199.9 m²) of space. One South Broad originally had an ornate lower facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
with a lot of detail and fluting
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
that was removed in the 1950s renovation. Philadelphia National Bank's renovations included the addition of granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
black slabs on the street level facade. These were removed in the 2000 renovation and replaced with imported Italian granite to better match the skyscraper's original architecture. The 2000 renovation also created a new entrance on the building's Broad Street front, which leads to a three-story gallery lobby. The lobby was expanded by demolishing a wall and connecting it to the lobby of the neighboring Widener Building.
Containing 9000 square feet (836.1 m²) each, the 24th and 25th floors were used as a penthouse apartment
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
for Rodman Wanamaker
Rodman Wanamaker
Lewis Rodman Wanamaker was a Republican and was a Presidential Elector for Pennsylvania in 1916. Wanamaker created aviation history by financing a two plane experimental seaplane class in response to a prize contest announcement by London's The Daily Mail newspaper in 1913 – the flying boat...
, consisting of five bedrooms, six baths, and outdoor terraces. The rooms featured hardwood floors, marble fireplaces, and detailed cast-plaster crown molding
Crown molding
Crown molding encapsulates a large family of moldings which are designed to gracefully flare out to a finished top edge. Crown molding is generally used for capping walls, pilasters, and cabinets, and is used extensively in the creation of interior and exterior cornice assemblies and door and...
. Originally the penthouse apartment was to be for Rodman Wanamaker and his wife but Wanamaker died in 1928 before the building was completed. Rodman Wanamaker's wife lived there only briefly, as she did not like the ringing bell in the tower overhead. The penthouse floors were converted to office use in 2000 by creative agency Red Tettemer + Partners. The firm Agoos/Lovera Architects modernized the basic office space on the 24th floor while preserving the ornate molding and materials that decorate the rest of the former penthouse space.
The Philadelphia National Bank's initials still adorn the top of the building, surrounding the top of the structure's bell tower. The letters, which are made of 16 feet (4.9 m) stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
, each weigh 3000 pounds (1,360.8 kg). Until the 1970s, PNB used the sign to forecast weather by lighting the letters in red to indicate a warming trend, or green to predict the opposite. Wachovia considered removing the PNB sign in 2003 to replace it with its own signage, but, in response, some Philadelphians expressed nostalgia for the name of the former Philadelphia institution and hoped the sign would stay. While the sign has not been replaced, the Philadelphia Historical Commission has said that the sign is not an integral part of the building's design or as significant to the city as the nearby PSFS Building's
Loews Philadelphia Hotel
The Loews Philadelphia Hotel, also known as the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society Building, or PSFS Building, is a skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A National Historic Landmark, the Loews Philadelphia was the first International style skyscraper built in the...
sign.
Founder's Bell
Within the bell tower is the 17-ton Founder's Bell. The bell was cast in 1925 under a commission by Rodman Wanamaker to honor his father John WanamakerJohn Wanamaker
John Wanamaker was a United States merchant, religious leader, civic and political figure, considered by some to be the father of modern advertising and a "pioneer in marketing." Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Biography:He was born on July 11, 1838.He opened his first store in...
, founder of the department store. Cast in the United Kingdom, the bell is 9 in 6 in (2.9 m) at the rim and 7 in 9 in (2.36 m) high and is one of the largest bells in the world. The bell was brought in 1926 by the Cunard
Cunard Line
Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
liner Ascania to New York City, from which it was conveyed to Philadelphia by rail. The bell was carried on a flatcar
Flatcar
A flatcar is a piece of railroad or railway rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck on four or six wheels or a pair of trucks or bogies . The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads...
and had clearance of only 2 inches (5.1 cm) in some of the tunnels the train passed through.
Tuned to a low D bass clef
Clef
A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes. Placed on one of the lines at the beginning of the staff, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on that line. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the staff...
, the bell's original home was the Wanamaker Building, a block from One South Broad. It hung 325 feet (99.1 m) above the street in a specially built tower on the building's roof. Hung on December 23, 1926, the bell was first rung on New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
of that year. The bell is rung every hour, except on Sundays. The bell was originally intended to swing in the tower on top of One South Broad, but when it was it shook the building. A hammer driven by a 230-volt electric motor was later installed and currently rings the bell. The ringing of the bell, which can be heard for 25 miles (40.2 km), is often mistakenly assumed to come from City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At , including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin...
's clock tower across the street.
Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
conductor Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
wrote in 1962 that the bell had "one of the finest sounds I have heard anywhere in America, Europe or Russia." In June 2000 the Founder's Bell was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
Tenants
The Wanamaker's Men's Store occupied the first seven floors of the skyscraper until 1952 when the Philadelphia National Bank moved into the building. Over the years PNB became CoreStates, First Union Corp, Wachovia and finally Wells FargoWells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
. Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia in 2008, is One Broad Street's main tenant, occupying about half the building. Other tenants include various law firms, advertising firm Nitrogen US, public relations firm Tonic Life Communications, consulting company Electronic Ink, and the advertising agency Red Tettemer + Partners. Past tenants have included Sylvania Electric Products
Sylvania Electric Products
Sylvania Electric Products was a U.S. manufacturer of diverse electrical equipment, including at various times radio transceivers, vacuum tubes, semiconductors, and mainframe computers...
, law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, and advertising and public relations firm Earle Palmer Brown.
The street-level space was converted into a bank once PNB bought the building. The bank branch closed in the 1990s and was converted into two roughly 8000 square feet (743.2 m²) areas intended for retail or restaurant use. A McCormick & Schmick's
McCormick & Schmick's
McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants is an American seafood restaurant chain, based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1979, the publicly-traded company operates a total of 92 locations in North America under various brands. This includes seven Canadian locations that operate under the Boathouse...
restaurant opened in the Broad-Street–Penn-Square corner in 2001. In late 2002, the Broad and Chestnut Streets corner was occupied by a Borders
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
bookstore, which moved into the two-story-plus-mezzanine 27000 square feet (2,508.4 m²) space after vacating the 1727 Walnut Street
Walnut Street (Philadelphia)
Walnut Street is located in downtown Philadelphia and extends from the city's Delaware River waterfront through Center City and West Philadelphia. Walnut Street has been characterized as "the city's premier shopping district"...
location it had occupied since 1990. Borders closed its store in 2011.