CITY LIMITS: The Rebirth of City Hall

Four years ago, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell graced the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer in a photograph which pictures him on his hands and knees scrubbing a City Hall bathroom. Symbolizing his willingness to do anything for Philadelphia to get the city back on its feet, the photograph of Rendell circulated around the country and helped Rendell earn his reputation as "America's Mayor." But what was a political symbol is becoming a reality, as the aging building needs cleaning and repairs, inside and out. America's Mayor has been working in a building which many have characterized as dated, dilapidated and otherwise in desperate need of repair. Under Rendell, with the city in the best fiscal shape it's seen in years, Philadelphia's City Hall is soon to get its needed renovations. City Hall so far has received $200 million dollars for a renovation project that could last between 10 and 12 years. But when the renovations are complete, Philadelphians and visitors from around the world will be able to finally see the building's white marble, instead of the gray, pigeon-stained facade now seen. Karen Butler, executive director of the Mayor's Action Committee, said the change in color is dramatic. "It is as if you held a bar of soap next to a piece of coal," Butler said. Butler and others said they were disturbed by the condition city hall had deteriorated into because of neglect. "It's a sad thing thing that city hall had been allowed to get to this stage," she said. "It is a real shame that it hasn't been maintained over the years." Butler blamed deferred maintenance and a wretched city fiscal situation as the cause for the earlier dearth of renovations. But Hy Myers, chief restoration architect for the Vitetta Group, the main firm working on the master plan for the renovations, has come to the rescue. Myers, a University alumnus with a master's degree in architecture, also lectures at the University. The Vitetta Group has been involved in restoration for projects at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Bellevue, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and most recently a complete redesign of the Convention Center. "This is the greatest city hall in America," Myers said. "It's certainly the largest of any city. And it is the most impressive of any." Plans for restoration include completely rearranging the first floor and transforming it into a public space, with $15 million in capital money to be spent this year. Marriage licenses, the register of wills, the prothonotary and other public offices will be moved to the first floor. In addition, there are plans for an exhibition museum area and a restaurant that might be extended into the courtyard during the warmer months. And no longer will people have to contend with prisoners walking around in shackles or doorways with metal detectors in the same halls as the public offices. All criminal courts will be moved out of city hall and into the new criminal center by September 11. According to Butler, restoration begins with the northeast corner and moves around counterclockwise, allowing restoration to be done in a "stacked way" so people will not be too inconvenienced by moving out of certain offices. What most impresses Myers about City Hall is its intestinal fortitude, its ability to withstand change. "It has stood since 1904 until now with all the changes in taste, and yet it has remained almost without any structural or major modifications," Myers said. "That says something about the strength of the building. "Not many buildings can withstand the onslaught of modern improvements," he added. One of the most unique aspects of City Hall, according to Butler, is that unlike other city halls, it houses all three branches of the city's government. "This is an unusual city in that all three branches come together in one building," Butler said. And some architectural historians agreed that Philadelphia's city hall is the best in the country. "Our city hall is one of the great public buildings in the world," History of Art Professor David Brownlee said. "It really deserves to be compared to the Hotel de Ville in Paris. You can hardly have a building in a more prominent location. It's a wonderful work of architecture." "It dominates its location and really plays and important role in a defining experience in Center City Philadelphia," he added. University lecturer George Thomas, who teaches courses in historic preservation and urban studies, also praised City Hall. "It's certainly the grandest of the period," Thomas said. "This is the building you look at and say 'that's a city hall.' " · Some, like Thomas, consider the history of City Hall to be even richer and grander than the actual structure. The construction of City Hall began in 1871 and finally ended in 1901 -- 30 years after it originally started. Fraught with deep city corruption from the beginning, the monumental structure was riddled with political infighting between the old and nouveaux riches. And it cost $26 million to a build, an astronomical figure in those times. "It's really the great paradigm of the city," Thomas explained "It explains the crises of the cities in the 1870s and 1880s." College senior Hayden Horowitz, whose senior thesis concentrates on the corruption involved in the construction of City Hall, said he was amazed and interested by the amount of scandal in Philadelphia. "City Hall became a symbol of corruption and extravagance. It's curious because today it is a city symbol and a national landmark," Horowitz said. Butler said the building, on which a statue of William Penn stands 548 feet over the city, was intended to be the tallest man-made structure in the world. But by the time it was finally completed, the Eifel Tower at 984 feet and the Washington Monument at 555 feet had both surpassed it. Greta Greenberger of the Foundation for Architecture, and a City Hall tour guide, explained the intentions of the builders. "For a while we were the tallest occupied building in the world," Greenberger said. "Philadelphia was trying to say to the world, 'We are a world class city. We are the center of the world.' " City Hall was designed by John McArthur and includes 250 figurative works by sculptor Alexander Calder. The building is patterned in the Second Empire architectural style, a copy of that used in 1850s and 1860s Paris. The Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., located next to the White House, is similarly fashioned. According to Greenberger, the building's sculptures are representative of the races of the world. On each corner of the building is a figurine which represents a certain part of the world. Vikings face north, Asians east, African Americans south and Native Americans west. Many individuals consider the tower to be the focal point of not only the building but also the entire city. From atop the tower, one can see 30 miles. "The tower is my favorite portion," Myers said "It is the image of City Hall." Throughout its long existence, many individuals have criticized the edifice, though, and some city officials even called for its destructions in the 1930s and 1950s. But even with all the criticism, William Penn and City Hall withstood the test of time and weathering. "City Hall has successively been regarded as a marvel of the age, as an outmoded relic, as a grotesque monstrosity, as a period piece of quaint appeal and now again as a major architectural monument," says a 1965 article from the American Institute of Architects Journal But Thomas said now is the time for renovations to begin in order for City Hall to survive and thrive in the 21st century. "They are at a point that if they don't do something quickly, the building will be in dire shape," Thomas said. "Philadelphia is trying to make its downtown an attractive area where people want be in and walk in," he added. "The goal is to make the building absolutely stunning. Thomas criticized the interior of the building as containing an "enormous amount of crappy work and a huge amount of awful stuff," Thomas continued. Horowitz best summed up one of Philadelphia's finest treasures. "City Hall has become the symbol of the city," Horowitz said. "It's a tremendous piece of architecture. To chance loosing any part of it to deterioration would be a real travesty."