Al was reminiscing the other day about when he and Marilyn were living in Wayne, PA. He said “That’s on the Main Line you know.” Well, the fact is, I don’t know, I was not around then and I have never heard of the Main Line, and wasn't sure I even cared. Nevertheless, Al went on to explain:
As I understand the history, at the turn of the last century many wealthy families built summer homes “in the country” and moved out of the city of Philadelphia to estates and communities along the old Pennsylvania Railroad main line. Thus the area became known as the Main Line. Other homes were built and the population grew into a series of small communities at each stop.The Main Line communities are the most prestigious in the area. I worked for Campbell’s Soup in in Camden, NJ just across the river from Philadelphia and used to drive to work. Twice a day, driving for 25 miles on what is called the most congested road in America, U.S. highway 76. A major stretch of the road is called the Schuylkill Expressway after the river it parallels or Sure Kill by those who are familiar with the road. It is traveled by 195,000 cars a day. It was a terrible drive, so after a few months I started to take the train to work. It was a difficult trip – one and a half hours each way, but I passed the time by reading & working. Perhaps I should have spent the time like Scott Turow, a Chicago attorney, who found a similar commute gave him enough time to write the best seller Presumed Innocent while on a commuter train and earned 38 million dollars plus.
As it turned out Al never wrote a novel on the train but he is glad to be retired and not having the daily commute. Sometimes the 20 minute trip into Pineville gets to be a drag, he says. Of course, he never takes me along unless we are going to the vet & that isn’t much fun for me.
I don’t know about you, but 38 million dollars sound good to me. If Al had applied himself there would be money to buy a lot of dog biscuits.
About the photo. For generations, Philadelphia had an agreement that no building would be constructed that was taller than “Billy Penn’s Hat.” William Penn’s statue is atop the City Hall building that is visible at the end of the street to the left of the picture. That rule was abandoned in the 1987’s and many skyscrapers have been constructed since then, as you can see. Following is a description of city hall for those of you who like more detail:
Architecture
City Hall's architecture is of the elaborate Victorian style referred to as French Second Empire. The Palais des Tuileries and the New Louvre in Paris influenced the building's design. Second Empire motifs are evident in the turreted courtyard stair towers; the slate mansard roof with dormer windows; the paired columns, which help to make it look three stories instead of eight; the integration of the hundreds of sculptures; the projecting corner pavilions; and the grand staircases in the North and South portals. City hall's style is also often referred to as High Victorian Picturesque Eclecticism or French Renaissance.
Its elaborate architecture has made City Hall controversial from the beginning. Some have wondered why there is a building of such decadence at the center of a city of Quaker heritage. There have even been proposals to demolish City Hall. The most recent of these was considered in the 1950's. Demolition of the building was looked into, but it was found that the cost would have come to a prohibitive twenty-five million dollars, the amount that was spent to build City Hall by 1901. At that cost, there would not have been enough money left to build a new City Hall, so the building was saved.
City Hall is a square building arranged around a central public courtyard. Its four exterior facades are all of similar appearance, and include the four monumental arched portals leading to the courtyard from the outside. The north façade is considered the ceremonial "front "of the building.
The north side is also where the famous tower is located. The tower rises 548 feet above the ground, terminating at the top of the hat on William Penn's statue. Just below the statue is the visitors' observation deck, approximately forty stories above the ground. There are massive twenty-six foot diameter clocks on all four sides of the metal portion of the tower. Below this area of the tower and throughout the remainder of the building are walls of solid brick covered with white marble and granite. The walls supporting the tower are twenty-two feet thick at the bottom. The building is one of the world's tallest and largest all-masonry, load bearing structures without a steel or iron frame.
Gentlemen's Agreement
To reflect Philadelphia's importance, McArthur intended City Hall to be the tallest structure in the world. Unfortunately, City Hall never held that title because the Eiffel Tower and Washington monument were both completed before City Hall and both are taller than the building. Since neither of those structure are true buildings, Philadelphia's City Hall did remain the tallest occupied building until 1909, when New York built the Metropolitan Life Building. It was, however, the tallest building in Philadelphia until 1987, when a long-standing "gentlemen's agreement," discouraging constructing higher than Penn's hat, was broken with the construction of the sixty-one-story Liberty Place.
For those of you who like even more information the web addres is: http://www.phila.gov/property/virtualcityhall/history.asp
Lucky
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