| The Philadelphia sculptor Alexander Milne Calder was commissioned to create 250+ bronze figures for the City Hall of Philadelphia building in the 1880s. The statute of Penn is 37 ft tall, 27 tons, and was hoisted to the tower top in 1899. Penn faces northeast toward Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown where he signed a treaty with the local Lenni Lenape tribes in 1681. "Billy" Penn gestures with his right hand in the direction of the site of the treaty-signing while he holds the Charter of Pennsylvania in his left hand. There was a "gentlemen's agreement" which lasted until the 1980s that indicated that no local building could rise higher than the brim on Billy Penn's hat. The construction of the Penn Center I building made that point moot. Alexander Milne Calder's son and grandson were also sculptors in Philadelphia. His son Alexander Stirling Milne designed the figures and the fountain which sits on the Logan Square- the Swann Memorial Fountain. Three generations of Calders are well represented throughout Philadelphia in its parks and historic buildings. |
