The Book of Philadelphia by Robert Shackleton

Author:Robert Shackleton [Shackleton, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV - A City Of The Classic

WHEREVER one turns, in Philadelphia, down any street, in any quarter of the city, one may expect to come upon buildings, new or old, designed on classic lines, with Grecian pillars and porticoes. The people should be connoisseurs of the classic, for the city is sprinkled with the classic, and its architects know and love the classic. This is largely owing to the influence of that Nicholas Biddle with whom, as head of the United States Bank, President Andrew Jackson carried on a contest. Biddle 's love for the classic in architecture was intense, and being a man of wealth and influence his influence in this particular was strong. Nor did he exert classical influence on public buildings or churchly buildings alone. He carried out his ideas superbly with his own property. On his great estate of Andalusia on the Delaware River, on the way to Bristol (to be Philadelphian, one should mention that the estate belonged to his wife and thus came under his control), on this estate he built a mansion, with splendid classic-pillared front, a mansion notable not only for its pillared beauty, but for the beauty of its setting, with the great river sweeping by in front, with towering trees, with grass and greenery and seclusion, in all a triumph of beauty.

It used to be that the name "Biddle'' stood in the public mind for " family" in Philadelphia, in a semi-jesting way; and it is still told that at the reception given to the Prince of Wales, some sixty years ago, so many people were pointed out by the mentor who stood beside him, as ''Biddies," that he asked, after a while, " Pray, tell me, what is a biddle? " But the family can point to sober prominence in business affairs, and to honorable prominence in the various wars of our country, as well as to the architectural influence of the notable Nicholas.

Among the finest of the classic buildings of the city is that of the old Girard National Bank, on South Third Street; a superbly proportioned structure, with central projecting pillared portico standing at the height of a few steps above the sidewalk; this building being the oldest in the city that has classic pillars and portico, it having been built over a century ago. And, to show that age is not necessary to beauty, there is the unusually beautiful building of the Girard Trust Company, put up but a few years ago at Broad and Chestnut streets from the designs of Stanford White: a building nobly following the Pantheon in inspiration.

The stately dignity of the big Custom House on Chestnut Street, the graceful attractiveness of the broad-fronted Presbyterian church on Washington Square; such are among the old; and among the many new are some beautiful new classic buildings of charitable foundations far out on Broad Street.

The influence of Biddle for the classic was backed and increased by that of Benjamin Latrobe, who designed several of

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