First Bank of the United States

The marble porticoed First Bank of the United States is the only national public building erected in Philadelphia before the federal government moved to the new capital city of Washington in 1800.  It was built to accommodate the controversial national bank that Congress chartered in 1791, at the behest of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton Treasury, to manage federal funds and establish a stable national currency.

Credit for the design was claimed by Samuel Blodgett (1757-1814), merchant, developer, publicist, and sometime architect, who had been appointed Superintendent

of Buildings for the new capital. Only the elaborate street façade of the otherwise simple brick structure is clad in Pennsylvania marble, and its details—including the unusual, narrowed spacing of the outer pair of portico columns--were closely modeled on the Royal Exchange in Dublin (Thomas Cooley, 1769-1779; now City Hall). Clodius LeGrand directed the stone masons and carved the fierce mahogany eagle in the pediment.

This somewhat old-fashioned design--essentially a Palladian house—would soon be overshadowed by the stylistically innovative architecture that was rising in Washington, D.C., but the building continued to serve the national bank and Philadelphia continued to be the nation’s financial capital after other government functions moved south to the Potomac. However, the foes of government participation in banking remained strong, and in 1811 Congress allowed the bank’s charter to lapse.

The building was purchased by financier Stephen Girard, who made it the headquarters of his own bank and bequeathed it to the city upon his death in 1831. It was then leased to a new company confusingly called the Girard Bank, which occupied it until 1929. The interior was reconfigured in 1901-1902 by James Windrim, and his glass-domed, three-story banking hall was preserved when Independence National Park Service took over the building in 1955. Restored in 1975-1976, the First Bank served for decades as Park Service offices and auxiliary exhibition space, and in 2018-2026 it is being adapted for use by a new museum devoted to the American economy.

Address: 120 S 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Photo credit: Visit Philadelphia®