Market East Civic Core

The Lit Brothers building occupies a full city block with a facade of white marble and cast iron that stretches along Market Street. It started as a humble clothing shop in eighteen ninety-one, founded by two brothers who expanded their…

The Strawbridge and Clothier department store dominates the intersection with its massive, limestone facade and rows of evenly spaced, recessed windows. This building operated as the flagship store for a Quaker family that refused to stock…

The Reading Terminal Market sits beneath a massive steel train shed that spans an entire city block without a single support column in the middle. When the Reading Railroad built this terminal in eighteen ninety-two, they needed a way to…

The Masonic Temple in Philadelphia features a towering granite facade of Norman-style arches that dominates the corner of Broad and Filbert streets. Inside these thick walls lie seven elaborate lodge rooms, each designed to represent a…

Philadelphia City Hall sits at the intersection of Broad and Market Streets, crowned by a thirty-seven-foot bronze statue of William Penn. It remains the largest municipal building in the United States, containing over fourteen acres of…

Dilworth Park features a grid of programmed water jets that rise directly from the granite paving in front of Philadelphia City Hall. Before the nineteen fifties, this space functioned as a sunken, walled-off transit entrance that locals…

The Clothespin stands forty-five feet tall, a massive steel object shaped exactly like a household fastener. Claes Oldenburg designed this sculpture in nineteen seventy-six to mimic the common wooden pin found in millions of homes. While…

The Wanamaker Building dominates the block with its heavy, granite exterior and the massive eagles perched above its entrances. This structure began as the Grand Depot, a former freight station converted by John Wanamaker into one of the…