William Penn Statue
The founder of Pennsylvania William Penn holds the record for the tallest statue in Philadelphia. It was cast in 1892 as a city public work project. It was then placed on top of City Hall in 1894. The statue stands at 37 feet tall and weighs over 53,000 pounds or 27 tons making it the heaviest statue that sits on top of a building in the world. Penn’s right hand, whose full-size fingernails are three inches long, points gracefully out at the city in a gesture of blessing. His left hand holds the Charter of Pennsylvania, which features readable text. His arm rests on a tree stump meant to symbolize the first of many trees cut in his “green country town.”
The making of the Giant
As stated before, the statue is massive, so how did they go about creating this giant of William Penn? First, a miniature version was created as the model for the life-size version. The miniature version was made out of aluminum and it is 28.5 inches tall. The orientation that William Penn is facing is the northeast; this direction is pointing towards a site where William Penn reportedly signed a treaty with the Lenni- Lenape.
Alexander Milne Calder 1846 - 1923
Alexander Milne Carder was born in Scotland in 1846, Calder immigrated to America in 1868 and later studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. As a sculptor, Calder is best known for creating the statues around City Hall. While the Penn statue is the most immediately apparent statue on the building, there are numerous other carvings, figures, and animals located on the structure. In total, Calder spent nearly 20 years sculpting around 250 figures for City Hall.
William Penn 1644-1718
William Penn was born in Tower Hill New England in 1644.After his father passed in 1670, Penn was granted a land charter by King Charles II, a debt repaid. With this acquisition, Penn became the largest non-royal landowner, owning some 45,000 square miles total. He named the area “Penn’s Woods” after his father. This area included land in what is known as Pennsylvania and Delaware today, but only after some very heated border disputes. Delaware’s southern border with Maryland caused a rift with Lord Baltimore and the Calvert Family. When the Duke of York granted land to Penn, Penn wanted access to the Chesapeake Bay, but the Calvert Family wanted the Pennsylvania border to be above the 40th parallel. After living in and around Philadelphia for several years, Penn left the colonies in 1701, never to return to America. He spent the last years of his life with financial woes, due to bad management, and racked up a lot of land debt. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to The Crown twice but was denied. He spent some time in debtors’ jail but was released after some Quakers raised the funds needed to help him pay off his debts.
Restoration
Ever since the William Penn, statue installment, it has needed to be cleaned and has restoration done to it to keep it from any type of corrosion, cracking or damage the sculpture required installing scaffolding from the floor of the City Hall Tower Observation Deck to the top of William Penn’s hat. During the initial inspection, the bronze is check for any significant amount of corrosion, with accumulation on Penn’s coat and the top of his outstretched hand. Following the intensive cleaning process, a specially formulated protective wax coating was applied, after which the entire sculpture was thoroughly re-inspected and buffed to ensure the evenness of the coating. Conservators also re-caulked areas of potential water intrusion, such as the area around the hatch in the top of Penn’s hat which provides access into the statue. Finally, a structural engineer inspected all of the bolts that anchor the statue to the tower to ensure the security and safety of the sculpture
The "Curse of Billy Penn"
There was a gentleman’s agreement made that no skyscraper could be taller than the brim of William Penn’s hat, disagreement essentially affected the building of buildings when it came to the developing city of Philadelphia, but in 1986 disagreement was broken due to the construction of the Philadelphia, twin liberty towers thus causing a curse to be released. This curse period lasted between 1986-2008 the sports world was hit hard by this curse. The Phillies lost the 1993 World Series, the Flyers lost the 1997 cup, the 76ers lost the 2001 NBA finals and the Eagles had three straight and NFC losses. After so many years of painful losses, the curse was then broken after the Comcast building was completed. There was a tiny little statue called the billy pen placed at the top of the Comcast building, essentially writing a new gentleman’s agreement. One thing to keep in mind the Comcast building is no longer the tallest building in Philadelphia. It is the Comcast technology center that was built in 2018 that holds the record of the tallest building in Philadelphia so the question is could this curse be re-released if another William Penn is not placed on the top of this building?
