Philadelphia City Hall
Granite masonry tower with a colossal bronze statue, among the tallest load-bearing walls raised.
This guide to Philadelphia City Hall puts your hand on granite blocks stacked twenty-two feet thick, carrying a five-hundred-forty-eight-foot tower on nothing but their own weight, built the way cathedral masons had worked for centuries. It traces the three decades of construction from 1871 to 1901, and the rival idea rising a few blocks away at the very same time: bolt an iron skeleton together and hang thin walls off it. Engineer Carl Robert Grimm still had to figure out how to set a bronze William Penn, delivered in fourteen separate pieces, onto the wrought-iron frame at the top. Stand at the base and put your hand on the wall.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.