The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers
Part 148
On the west side of City Hall Square, opposite the City Hall, is the enormous Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The waiting-room contains a large allegorical relief, while one wall is covered with a mammoth railway map of the United States. On the north side of the square, at the corner of Broad Street and Filbert Street, is the Masonic Temple, a huge granite structure with a tower two hundred and fifty feet high and an elaborately carved Norman porch.
On the east side of the square, occupying the block bounded by the square, Market Street, Thirteenth Street, and Chestnut Street, is Wanamaker’s Store, one of the largest in the United States. On the south side of the square is the Betz Building, with heads of the Presidents of the United States in the bronze cornice above the third-story windows.
Chestnut Street is the chief street of Philadelphia, containing many of the handsomest and most interesting buildings. To the left, at the corner of Broad Street and adjoining the Betz Building, is the Franklin National Bank, while to the right rises the fine office of the Real Estate Trust Co. At the corner of Twelfth Street is the tall Commonwealth Trust Building, and at the corner of Tenth Street, on the same side, is the New York Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Between Tenth and Ninth Streets, to the left, are the Mortgage Trust Co., the Penn Mutual Life Building, with an elaborate facade, and the office of the _Philadelphia Record_. At the corner of Ninth Street, extending on the north to Market Street, is the Post Office, a large granite building in the Renaissance style, erected at a cost of five million dollars. It also contains the United States Courts and the offices of various Federal officials. In front of the Post Office is a colossal seated figure of Benjamin Franklin. Between Eighth and Seventh Streets is the ornamented front of the Union Trust Co. This neighborhood contains several newspaper offices. At the corner of Sixth Street, on the Public Ledger Building, is another statue of Franklin.
In Seventh Street, a little to the north of Chestnut Street, is the Franklin Institute with a library, museum and lecture-hall.
Between Fifth and Sixth Streets is Independence Hall, or the old State House, a modest brick edifice (1732-1735), which is in some respects the most interesting building in the United States. Here the Continental Congress met during the American Revolution (1775-1781), and here, on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted. In 1897-1898 the whole building was restored as far as possible to its original condition.
The Custom House, with a Doric portico, was originally erected in 1819-1824 for the United States Bank. It is copied from the Parthenon, and considered one of the best examples of Doric architecture in the world.
A lane diverging to the right between Fourth and Third Streets, opposite the Fidelity Trust Co., leads to Carpenters’ Hall, where the First Colonial Congress assembled in 1774. It contains the chairs used at the Congress, various historical relics, and the inscription: “Within these walls Henry, Hancock, and Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of war.” Chestnut Street ends at the Delaware River.
Walnut Street runs parallel to Chestnut Street, one block to the south. In this street, at the intersection of Dock Street and Third Street, is the Stock Exchange, formerly the Merchants Exchange, with a semi-circular portico facing the river. Near it, in Third Street, is the Girard Bank, built for the first United States Bank and long owned by Stephen Girard. At Fourth Street is the building of the Manhattan Insurance Co.
Walnut Street now crosses Broad Street, to the west of which it consists mainly of private residences. Between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets we pass Rittenhouse Square, a fashionable residence quarter.
At the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets are the white marble building of the Girard Trust Co., with a rotunda, and the tall Land Title Building.
North Broad Street, beginning on the north side of the City Hall Square, a handsome street one hundred and thirteen feet wide, contains in its upper portion many of the finest private residences in Philadelphia. To the right, at the corner of Filbert Street, is the Masonic Temple, which is adjoined by the Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church. On the opposite side of the street are the tall buildings of the United Gas Improvement Co. and the Fidelity Mutual Life Association. To the right is the Odd Fellows’ Temple.
To the left, at the corner of Cherry Street, is the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a building in the Venetian style of architecture. The Academy was founded in 1805. Besides its collections it supports an important art-school, the lecture hall of which is adorned with effective decorations by the pupils. Its collections include five hundred paintings, numerous sculptures, several hundred casts, and fifty thousand engravings. The early American school is especially well represented.
On the west side of Broad Street, between Race and Vine Streets, are the Hahnemann College and Hospital, one of the chief homœopathic institutions of the kind. To the right, at the corner of Spring Garden Street, is the Spring Garden Institute for instruction in drawing, painting, and the mechanic arts. Opposite are the Baldwin Locomotive Works, a highly interesting industrial establishment.
A little farther on is the Boys’ Central High School, an unusually large and handsome structure, and the Synagogue Rodef Shalom, in a Moorish style.
Farther up Broad Street are numerous handsome private houses, churches, and other edifices. At the northwest corner of Broad Street and Girard Avenue is the handsome Widener Mansion, presented to the city and used as a branch of the Free Library. Beyond Master Street, to the left, is the elaborate home of the Mercantile Club. Beyond this Broad Street runs out to Germantown, six miles from the City Hall.
Girard Avenue runs west from North Broad Street to Girard College, one of the richest and most notable philanthropic institutions in the United States. It was founded by Stephen Girard, a native of France, for the education of male orphans. The original bequest of over five million dollars has increased to about thirty-five million dollars.
The main building is a dignified marble structure in the Corinthian style, resembling the Madeleine at Paris. In the vestibule are a statute of Stephen Girard, and his sarcophagus. A room on the ground floor contains several relics of him.
Market Street is the chief wholesale business thoroughfare of the city. A little to the east of City Hall Square it passes the Philadelphia & Reading Railway Station, a tall Renaissance building with a train shed little smaller than that of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The department store of Gimbel Brothers, on the south side of the street, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, is one of the largest in the world. The Penn National Bank, at the corner of South Seventh Street, occupies the site of the house in which Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.
South Broad Street leads to the south from City Hall Square. Its intersection with Chestnut Street, just to the south of the City Hall, is environed with tall office buildings. To the right is the annex of the Land Title Building, extending to Sansom Street. Opposite, adjoining the Real Estate Trust Co., is the North American Building, named after the newspaper which occupies it. Below is the Union League Club, the chief Republican club of Pennsylvania. On the same side is the large Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, the leading hotel of Philadelphia, and one of the great hostelries of the country. Farther on, to the right, is the Art Club, in the Renaissance style, in which exhibitions of paintings, concerts, and public lectures are held. At Locust Street, to the right, is the Academy of Music, while to the left is the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, incorporated in 1876, with a special view to the development of the art industries of Pennsylvania. A characteristic feature is the department of weaving and textile design. The Industrial Museum Hall is connected with this excellent institution.
Below Pine Street, Broad Street contains few important buildings. Of special note, however, is the Ridgway Library, which stands to the left, between Christian and Carpenter Streets, nearly one mile from the City Hall. This handsome building was erected with a legacy of one million five hundred thousand dollars left by Dr. Rush in 1869, as a branch of the Philadelphia Library. Adjoining the main hall is the tomb of the founder.
Broad Street ends, four miles from the City Hall, at League Island Park, three hundred acres in extent. League Island itself, in the Delaware, contains a United States Navy Yard.
WEST PHILADELPHIA, the extension of the city beyond the Schuylkill, contains many of the chief residence streets and several public buildings and charitable institutions.
The University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1740, and removed to West Philadelphia in 1872, occupies a group of more than thirty buildings scattered over an area of sixty acres bounded by Woodland and Cleveland Avenues and Pine and Thirty-second Streets.
The College, the Medical School, Dental School, and Law School, are all provided with spacious and well-equipped buildings. Houston Hall, behind College Hall, is the social center of the University student life. The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology is recognized as the headquarters of anatomical research in the United States and contains the first museum of human anatomy founded in America. The Morgan Laboratory of Physics, the Harrison Laboratory of Chemistry, the Gymnasium, and the Dormitories are all notable structures. Franklin Field, adjoining Thirty-third Street, is the athletic ground of the University and contains a large stadium.
The Museum of Science and Art occupies a tasteful building in South Street, owing part of its inspiration to the Certosa at Pavia, and is divided into five sections. Its value is largely due to the fact that many of its contents were found by expeditions organized by the University itself.
A little to the northeast, at the corner of Chestnut Street and Thirty-second Street, is the Drexel Institute, founded by A. J. Drexel, and opened in 1892. The total cost of buildings and equipment was four million five hundred thousand dollars.
Fairmount Park, the chief park of Philadelphia, is one of the largest in the world, and covers an area of three thousand three hundred and forty acres. The park proper extends along both banks of the Schuylkill for about four miles, and the narrow strip along the Wissahickon, six miles, and one of the noted drives of the world, is also included in the park limits. The principal entrances are at the end of Green Street, which is connected with the City Hall by the wide Park Boulevard, and at Girard Avenue.
In this park, in 1876 was held the Centennial Exhibition; and in its environs are the Zoological Garden, the Fairmount Waterworks, which supply to the city one hundred million gallons of water daily, the beautiful Horticultural Hall and Memorial Hall, built as part of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 at a cost of one million five hundred thousand dollars, and now containing a permanent collection of art and industry known as Pennsylvania Museum of Industrial Art.
At Sackamaxon, in Beach Street, is the small Penn Treaty Park, supposed to occupy the spot where Penn made his treaty with the Indians in 1682, under an elm that has long since vanished, a treaty, in the words of Voltaire, “never sworn to and never broken.”
In its manufacturing products Philadelphia ranks next to New York. There are upward of twenty thousand manufacturing establishments, the combined output of which amounts to more than eight hundred million dollars. The chief products are locomotives, sugar and molasses, men’s clothing, foundry and machine-shop products, carpets and rugs, hosiery and knit goods, woolen and cotton goods, malt liquors, morocco, chemicals, packed meat, refined petroleum and silk, and silk goods. The great Cramp ship-building yards are on the Delaware River. The Baldwin Locomotive Works are the largest in the world.
Philadelphia was founded by William Penn in 1682, the year after was made the capital of Pennsylvania, and soon became a place of importance. It was the central point in the War of Independence, where the first Continental Congress met, September 4, 1774, and where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776. At Philadelphia, also, the Federal Union was signed, in 1778; and here, too, the Constitution of the United States was framed, in 1787. An interest of another kind attaches to the fact that the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America was organized here in 1786. From 1790 to 1800 Philadelphia was the Federal Capital; and the first mint was established here in 1792. Later events have been the holding of the Centennial Exhibition, in 1876, and the commemoration of Penn’s landing in 1882.
=Pittsburgh, Pa.= [The “Smoky City,” “Iron City”; named in 1758, when the French had been driven out by Washington; Fort Pitt, after William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the name Pittsburgh being adopted in 1769.]
It is the second city of Pennsylvania and one of the chief industrial centers of the United States, and occupies the tongue of land between the Monongahela and the Allegheny, which here unite to form the Ohio, and also a strip of land on the south side of the Monongahela. The sister city, Allegheny, situated on the north bank of the Allegheny and extending down to the Ohio, was incorporated with Pittsburgh in 1907 and is now known as the North Side. The rivers are crossed by numerous bridges.
Smithfield Street, diverging from Liberty Avenue, not far from the Union Station, leads to the river Monongahela, on the other side of which, from Washington Heights, may be obtained a fine view of the city. On Liberty Avenue, to the right, is the City Hall a fine structure of white sandstone. A little farther on, to the left, is the Post Office. At the bridge are the Monongahela Hotel and the Baltimore & Ohio Station.
Crossing the Smithfield Street Bridge, Mt. Washington (three hundred and seventy feet) may be ascended by one of the three inclined railways on this side. These interesting, but at first somewhat startling, pieces of apparatus are worked by cables and transport horses and carriages as well as persons.
The finest building in Pittsburgh is the Allegheny County Court House, in Grant Street, a splendid example of H. H. Richardson’s treatment of Romanesque, erected in 1888 at a cost of two million five hundred thousand dollars. The massive Prison is connected with the Court House by a finely handled stone bridge. The main tower is three hundred and twenty feet high. The government building cost one million five hundred thousand dollars.
Other buildings of importance are the Frick Building, a granite office structure of twenty stories at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Grant Street; the Carnegie Building and the Farmers’ Bank Building (these two also in Fifth Avenue); the Union National Bank Building and the Commonwealth Trust Co. Building, in Fourth Avenue; the First Presbyterian Church, in Sixth Avenue; the Fulton Building, and the Bessemer Building (the last two at the corner of Sixth Street and Duquesne Way).
More to the east are the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy and the new Calvary Episcopal Church (at the corner of Shady Avenue and Walnut Street), a beautiful example of thirteenth century Gothic. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul stands in Fifth Avenue, at the corner of Craig Street.
To the east of the city lies Schenley Park, containing the fine Phipps Conservatory and the Hall of Botany. Near the Forbes Street entrance to the Park is the great central building of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in which are housed not only the main collection of the library, but also two of the three departments of the Carnegie Institute. The structure, originally built in the Italian Renaissance style at a cost of eight hundred thousand dollars, was remodeled and enlarged in 1904-1907 at an additional cost of five million dollars. The city is also the seat of Pittsburgh University, Holy Ghost College, and Penn’s College for Women. The great iron and steel works have made the prosperity and reputation of Pittsburgh. Among these are the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Homestead Steel Works, the Duquesne Steel Works, the American Bridge Co., the Jones & Laughlin Works, the Oliver Iron & Steel Co., the Crescent Steel Works, and the Pressed Steel Car Co.
Its manufactures include everything, indeed, which can be made of iron, from a fifty-eight-ton gun to nails and tacks; steel in its various applications; electrical machinery and appliances; all descriptions of glass and glassware; silver and nickel-plated ware; Japan and Britannia ware; pressed tin, brass, copper, bronzes; Portland cement, earthenware, crucibles, fire-pots, bricks; furniture, wagons and carriages; brushes, bellows, mechanical supplies of all kinds; natural-gas fittings, and tools for oil and gas wells. Pittsburgh has, also, the largest manufactory of cork, and the largest pickling and preserving establishment in the world.
In 1754 a few English traders built a stockade here, but were driven away by the French. The latter replaced the stockade by a fort, which, in honor of the Governor of Canada, they called Duquesne. In 1758 it was taken by the English, who next year commenced a large and strong fortification, which, in honor of the elder Pitt, then Prime Minister, they called Fort Pitt. The settlement became a borough in 1804, and in 1816 was incorporated as the city of Pittsburgh. In 1872 the limits of the city were extended across the Monongahela, and by 1906 it extended over twenty-eight square miles. In 1907 Allegheny City (in spite of the opposition of a large majority of its inhabitants) was annexed; the Supreme Court of the United States declared the act valid, and thus Allegheny became the North Side of the present Pittsburgh.
=Richmond, Va.= [Named from Richmond-on-the-Thames, a suburb of London; the name suggested owing to analogy in situation.]
It is the capital of Virginia, on the left bank of the James River, at the head of tide water, one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, and one hundred and sixteen miles by rail south of Washington. It is a port of entry, and vessels drawing sixteen feet of water can come up to the lower end of the city, where there are large docks. Richmond is picturesquely situated on a group of hills, and fine water power is afforded by the James River, which descends one hundred and sixteen feet in nine miles.
Near the center of the city, on Shockoe Hill, is Capitol Square, a tree-shaded area of twelve acres. The Capitol, or State House, partly designed after the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, France, occupies the highest point of the square and dates from 1785. The wings were added in 1906.
In the Central Hall, surmounted by a dome, are Houdon’s statue of Washington (which Washington himself is said to have seen in its present position) and a bust of Lafayette by the same artist. The Senate Chamber, to the right, was used as the Confederate House of Representatives during the Civil War. The House of Delegates, to the left, contains portraits of Chatham and Jefferson, and was the scene of Aaron Burr’s trial for high treason in 1807, and of the State Secession Convention in 1861.
Capitol Square also contains a fine equestrian statue of Washington, with figures of Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, Andrew Lewis, and Chief Justice Marshall round the pedestal; a statue of Stonewall Jackson; a statue of Hunter Holmes McGuire, the most noted surgeon of the South; and a statue of Henry Clay. At the northeast corner of the square stands the Governor’s Mansion.
On the north side, in Broad Street, is the City Hall, a handsome Gothic structure with a clock-tower. To the east of the Capitol is the State Library. In Twelfth Street, at the corner of Clay Street, a little to the north of Capitol Square, is the Jefferson Davis Mansion, or “White House of the Confederacy,” occupied by Mr. Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy. It is now fitted up as a Museum of Confederate Relics.
St. John’s Church, erected in 1740, but since much enlarged, is at the corner of Broad and Twenty-fourth Streets. The Virginia Convention was held in this church in 1775, and it was here that Patrick Henry made his famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech.
On Monument Avenue (a prolongation of Franklin Street) is the equestrian statue of General Lee. Adjacent is an equestrian statue of General J. E. B. Stuart, and a half mile farther on, at the west end of the avenue, is the Jefferson Davis Monument, consisting of a semi-circular colonnade with a pillar supporting an allegorical female figure and inscribed “Deo Vindice,” with a heroic statue of the ex-president in front. A little to the east of the Lee Statue is Richmond College, a leading educational institution of Virginia.
Among other points of interest in Richmond are the Westmoreland Club, at the corner of Grace and Sixth Streets; the Commonwealth Club, at the corner of Franklin and Madison Streets; the Virginia Club, 2311 East Grace Street; Chief Justice Marshall’s House; the Tobacco Exchange, Shockoe Slip; the University College of Medicine; the Medical College of Virginia; the National Cemetery, two miles to the northeast of the city; the Sheltering Arms Hospital, and Idlewood Park, a favorite summer-resort, close to the city on the west.
Hollywood Cemetery is the most interesting of the cemeteries. Near the west gate of the cemetery is the Confederate Monument, a rude pyramid of stone ninety feet high, erected as a memorial to the sixteen thousand Confederate soldiers buried here. On President’s Hill, in the southwest corner of the cemetery, overlooking the river, are the graves of Monroe and Tyler, two of the seven presidents born in Virginia. John Randolph, Jefferson Davis, General Pickett, General J. E. B. Stuart and Commodore Maury are also buried here. Patrick Henry is buried in St. John’s Churchyard.
During the last three years of the Civil War (1862-1865) battles raged all round Richmond, and remains of the fortified lines constructed to protect the city are visible in various parts of the environs.
The leading industry is the manufacture of tobacco. Other important products are lumber and planing-mill supplies, foundry and machine-shop products (including locomotives), fancy and paper boxes, packing boxes, saddlery and harness, carriages and wagons, confectionery, flavoring extracts, patent medicines and compounds, etc. There are also large railroad repair shops, establishments for grinding and roasting coffee, etc. Richmond was formerly noted as a center of the flour-milling industry.
Richmond was settled in 1733 and incorporated in 1742. Captain John Smith’s settlement of “None Such” in 1609 and Fort Charles, erected in 1645, were both near the site of the present city. In 1779 it became the capital of the state. During the American Revolution the place was taken by a British force under Benedict Arnold, January 5, 1781, and the warehouses and public buildings were burned. The following year the city was chartered. Richmond, as the capital of the Confederacy, was the main objective of Federal operations during the Civil War. It was evacuated April 2, 1865. The warehouses and a considerable part of the business section of the city were burned by the Confederates.
=Salt Lake City, Utah.= [The “City of the Saints;” named for the famous lake of that state.]