Philadelphia City Hall

Philadelphia City Hall is distinguished by the massive, thirty-seven-foot bronze statue of William Penn that crowns its central tower. Rising five hundred forty-eight feet above Penn Square, this Second Empire style structure served as the world’s tallest habitable building upon its completion in nineteen oh one. The building is the largest municipal government center in the United States and remains the world’s largest load-bearing masonry structure. To support its immense weight without a steel frame, builders constructed granite and brick walls that measure up to twenty-two feet thick at the base.