View on Fifth Street above Walnut Street including the halls of the Library Company of Philadelphia (built 1790) and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (built 1792). Depicts patrons entering and leaving the Palladian style red brick library building; men and a boy playing dice on the sidewalk; a blacksmith working in his shop; and a man leading a horse-drawn cart down the street. The Library Company, established by Benjamin Franklin and his Junto in 1731, remained at the hall designed by Dr. William Thornton until 1880; the building razed in 1887. Surgeons or Anatomical Hall served as a lecture room and chemistry laboratory for the University's medical students until 1807., Title from duplicate print., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Illustrated in S. Robert Teitelman's Birch's Views of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982, rev. 2000), pl. 19.
Creator
W. Birch & Son
Date
1799
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Birch's views [Sn 19a/P.2276.42]
