Exterior winter view of the hall as it looked on February 22, 1852, with adjoining fenced property, adorned with an American flag, and containing the district's police station and Mayor's office, on the busy, snow covered Third Street between Buttonwood and Green streets. Several warmly dressed white pedestrians, hall officials, and a policeman mill about and converse on the sidewalk; white children throw snowballs and play with a sled; horse-drawn sleighs pass by; white men shovel snow off the street and hall steps; and an African American man carrying a basket of celery and a dead goose stops in the street and looks behind him and toward the passing sled. A broadside inscribed, "Washington, 22nd Feb. 1852" adorns a nearby building. Prior to the city's consolidation with bordering townships in 1854, neighborhoods maintained and housed their own police stations, mayors, and other government officials in Commissioners Halls, including Northern Liberties. Built in 1814, the Northern Liberties' hall served as the quarters of the Northern Liberty Barracks until the American Revolution, and was torn down circa 1869 for the erection of Northern Liberties Grammar School., Title from item., Date of publication supplied by Wainwright., Reproduced in Edwin Wolf's Philadelphia: Portrait of an American city (Philadelphia: Camino Books in cooperation with the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1990), p. 199. Incorrectly identified as Commissioners Hall, Spring Garden., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 151, Print described in Public Ledger, July 1, 1853., Accessioned 1982., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator
Kuchel, Charles Conrad, 1820-, artist
Date
[1853]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **W79 [P.2034]
