Explore City Hall in Philly

Visiting: Philadelphia’s City Hall

‘Most Impressive Building in Philadelphia’

Philadelphia’s City Hall, the biggest slice of gingerbread you’ll ever see, is the most impressive building in Philadelphia. Although the structure towered over the city for four-score years, in 1987, a developer got permission to build higher. Now 8 ordinary office towers dwarf the seat of municipal government.

The blueprints called for Earth’s biggest building, but by the end of its 30-year construction, the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument had sprouted. It was the tallest occupied structure in the U.S. until 1909.

Today City Hall, 548 feet high, is the world’s tallest building without steel supports. “The marble elephant,” now a National Historic Landmark, still inspires citizens, visitors and photographers. Once it won second place in a Philadelphia Inquirer poll of readers’ favorite buildings.

Architectural historians call the style “high-Victorian picturesque eclecticism.” The dominant part of City Hall is its tower, topped by William Penn – no, not Ben Franklin – who faces northeast, where he made a legendary treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians in 1682.

City Hall has 7 complete floors, 2 partial floors and a basement. The first interior level is tall enough for four pro basketball players to stand on each other’s shoulders and not be able to reach the ceiling tiles. City Hall has more than 700 rooms, all with windows facing a street or an interior courtyard. If you don’t do windows, imagine not doing 1,380 of them. Inside and out, City Hall boasts the richest sculptural decoration of any American building. Alexander Milne Calder — father of the designer of the Swann Fountain at Philadelphia’s Logan Circle and grandfather of the man credited with inventing mobiles — sculpted Penn and the other 250 pieces.

Here is a visual tour of City Hall.

Volunteers in City Hall give hour-and-a-half to two-hour tours, including a 30-story elevator ride, from 9:30 to 4:15 on business days only. (This used to be my job.) Enter the eastern “portal,” from market Street East, pass the building entrance and go to Room 121, the visitors’ information center, where tours begin and a gift shop offers souvenirs.

Philadelphia City Hall Interesting Facts

As you ride the glass-walled elevator up to the observation deck, check your Seiko against the tower clock, which began ticking January 1, 1899. The north, south, east and west clock faces are 23 feet across; each minute hand is 15 feet long, each hour hand 12 ½ feet.
Tallest building in the world, at 548 feet, from 1901 to 1908..
Currently the 16th-tallest building in Pennsylvania.

Since you can buy timed tickets only for the same day, go early – 9 a.m. – to reserve. Or call 215-686-2840 to reserve and pay by credit card.