Details
Creator Billings, H.B., artist.
Contributor Gordon's Art Studio, printer.
Evans, David Jr., fl. 1794-1806, architect.
Hamilton, Andrew, ca. 1676-1741, architect.
Woolley, Edmund, ca. 1695-1771, architect.
Title Plan for the permanent improvement of Independence Square. [graphic] : Designed by George F. Gordon. / H.B. Billings, lith. Phila.
Publisher Philadelphia: From Gordon's Art Studio, N.E. cor. Arch & Juniper Sts
Publisher PA. Philadelphia. 1874
Date 1874
Physical Description 1 print: lithograph, tinted with one stone; 41.5 x 60 cm. (16.25 x 23.5 in.)
Description Circular illustration showing an oblique elevation looking southwest at Independence Square, situated between Fifth and Sixth Streets, and Chestnut and Walnut Streets, modified with George F. Gordon's proposed changes. Includes old City Hall built 1790-1791 after the designs of David Evans, Jr. (500 Chestnut); Independence Hall, built 1732-1748 after designs by Andrew Hamilton and Edmund Woolley (520 Chestnut Street); and Congress Hall built 1787-1789 (540-558 Chestnut). Eight equidistant walkways, "to be thirty feet wide, to be laid with variegated tile," radiate from the center to the corners of the square and are connected by a circular walk. Also shows the unexecuted Independence Monument (center), slated to be erected by the Thirteen Original States. Two fountains near Walnut Street demonstrate the creator's desire to beautify the square with "fountains, vases, statuary, and flower beds of all varieties"; and bronze statues on pedestals of the fifty-six signers of "The Declaration of Independence" lining the periphery of the square, which on three sides is completely open and accessible to pedestrians via granite steps. Statues of George Washington, William Penn, a group of Native Americans, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay would face Chestnut Street near Independence Hall.
Contains passages of explicative text printed on verso. Text describes how to achieve this plan for the square. The old brick wall surrounding the square would be removed, along with the court house on Sixth Street, and the building occuppied by the Philosophical Society on Fifth Street. Gordon submitted his plan and description in January of 1875 "in the hope, that now, at last, in the Centennial hour of our nation, something may be done, worthy of the sacred place in our midst."
Notes Not in Wainwright.
Philadelphia on Stone
POS 605
Subject City Hall (Philadelphia, PA)
Congress Hall (Philadelphia, PA)
Independence Hall (Philadelphia, PA)
Public buildings -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Monuments & memorials -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Geographic subject Chestnut Street (Philadelphia, PA) -- 500 block.
Independence Square (Philadelphia, PA)
Genre Circulars -- 1870-1880.
Elevations -- 1870-1880.
Lithographs -- Tinted -- 1870-1880.
Plans -- 1870-1880.
Associated name Evans, David Jr., fl. 1794-1806, architect.
Associated name Hamilton, Andrew, ca. 1676-1741, architect.
Associated name Woolley, Edmund, ca. 1695-1771, architect.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| *BW - Parks & Squares [21095.O.7]
Accession number 21095.O.7