Loews Philadelphia Hotel - History

History

In the 1920s banks such as Girard Trust Company and other businesses such as Wanamaker's and Sun Oil Company were expanding by building skyscrapers in Center City, Philadelphia. To replace their Walnut Street headquarters the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) began planning a new building on Market Street at the former location of the William Penn Charter School. Under direction of bank President James M. Wilcox, they began seeking designs for a building, of which that by architects William Lescaze and George Howe was accepted by the board of directors in November 1930. During the 1920s Howe worked for the firm Mellor, Meigs and Howe where he designed two Beaux-Arts styled bank branches for PSFS. In 1929 Howe left the firm and partnered with Lescaze. Together, with influence from Wilcox, they designed the new PSFS Building.

Construction was contracted to the George A. Fuller Company. Completed in 1932 at a cost of US$8 million, the PSFS Building was a modern departure from traditional bank architecture and other Philadelphia skyscrapers. Designed in the International style, the building was the first skyscraper of its type built in the United States.

Part of the modern amenities installed to attract tenants included radio reception devices installed in each of the building's offices by the RCA Victor Company. The Carrier Engineering Corporation was contracted to install air conditioning inside the building, making it only the second air-conditioned high-rise in the United States. The skyscraper was completed during the Great Depression and the neon initials of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society were kept lit throughout the economic troubles to create a symbol of hope and consistency for the city. In the early part of the Depression the initials were jokingly said to mean "Philadelphia Slowly Faces Starvation."

Over the years, the building with its sign became a Philadelphia landmark. The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society held school programs that allowed Philadelphia children to open accounts with the bank and deposit money every week. The program, through which generations of Philadelphians opened their first bank accounts, featured a School Accounts Counter in the building and stepstools for the youngest children. For many children it became a rite of passage to travel to the PSFS Building to access their accounts.

The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society occupied 112,723 square feet (10,000 m2) of the 374,628 square feet (35,000 m2) of office space in the building. The remaining office space was available for rent by other tenants. One notable tenant was Towers Perrin, which established itself in the PSFS Building in 1934.

The PSFS Building was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 because of its architectural significance.

In 1982 PSFS merged with the Western Savings Fund Society and expanded into other financial services. In September 1985 the bank began doing business as Meritor Financial Group, of which PSFS became a subsidiary. Meritor's aggressive expansion in the 1980s led to the company losing millions of dollars in new business ventures. In 1989 Meritor sold 54 of its PSFS branches and the PSFS name to Mellon Bank. The deal went into effect in 1990 and on May 21 of that year the building's neon sign was turned off. Meritor said that having sold the name it was inappropriate to light the sign. Turning off the sign provoked outrage and protest from the public, historians, and architecture buffs. As a result Meritor and Mellon Bank agreed to relight the sign and keep it lit. Meritor said, "We agreed that it was in the best interest of the city to relight it."

In the late 1980s an office building boom in the Market Street West neighborhood of Center City was attracting tenants looking for larger office space away from the older PSFS Building. By 1992 the building was 85 percent vacant and in December of that year the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seized Meritor Financial Group and sold off the rest of its bank branches to Mellon Bank. The FDIC took control of Meritor's remaining assets including the PSFS Building. The FDIC was not the sole owner of the building since Meritor had, by the 1990s, sold off interest in the building to several partners.