Philadelphia City Hall
National Historic Landmark · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A Second Empire pile of granite, marble and brick that took thirty years to build and was finished in 1901, and which remains the tallest load-bearing masonry building in the world — the walls at the base are twenty-two feet thick because there is no steel frame holding it up, only stone. A thirty-seven-foot bronze William Penn stands on the tower, and for eighty-odd years an unwritten agreement kept every building in the city below his hat. It is still the working seat of city government, it sits in the middle of the street grid rather than beside it, and the courtyard is a public thoroughfare that anyone can walk through at any time.
1400 John F Kennedy Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19107, United States
The courtyard and ground-floor public corridors are open and free at all hours. The tower observation deck and the interior building tour run WEEKDAYS ONLY, generally from mid-morning to late afternoon, ticketed at the visitor centre in Room 121. Tower slots are timed, limited by a very small lift, and sell out on fine days. Tours are cancelled without much notice for civic events and weather.
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