Inquirer Building
- Architect
- Rankin, Kellogg & Crane
- Year
- 1924
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Philadelphia, PA
- Collection
- philly deco
Completed in 1924 at Broad and Callowhill Streets, the Inquirer Building was built as the new headquarters of The Philadelphia Inquirer by publisher James Elverson Jr., who dedicated it to his father, longtime publisher James Elverson. Designed by Rankin, Kellogg & Crane and rising 340 feet over eighteen stories, it was the tallest building north of City Hall when it opened, its gold dome and four-faced clock visible for miles. The paper's presses began running there in July 1925; the building now houses the Philadelphia Police Department's 6th and 9th Districts and the Medical Examiner's Office.
the building
The gold dome and clock. Crowning the eighteen-story tower, a gold dome housing a four-faced clock was visible for miles across the city -- a beacon meant to announce the Inquirer's presence the way a cathedral spire once announced a parish.
the style
Rankin, Kellogg & Crane designed the tower in the Beaux-Arts style, giving a modern steel-framed newspaper plant the dressed-stone dignity of a civic monument -- fitting for a building meant to broadcast the power of the city's dominant daily paper.
More on Art Decosignificance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. After newspaper operations moved out, the building was repurposed as headquarters for the Philadelphia Police Department's 6th and 9th Districts and the city's Medical Examiner's Office.
nearby
- Packard Motor Corporation Building
- Congregation Rodeph Shalom
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul
- Divine Lorraine Hotel
- Terminal Commerce Building