PSFS Building

Skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Loews Philadelphia Hotel, previously known as the PSFS Building, is a skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A National Historic Landmark, the building was the first International style skyscraper constructed in the United States. It was built for the Philadelphia Saving (later Savings) Fund Society in 1932 and was designed by architects William Lescaze and George Howe. The skyscraper's design was a departure from traditional bank and Philadelphia architecture, lacking features such as domes and ornamentation. Combining Lescaze's experience with European modernism, Howe's Beaux Arts background and the desire of Society President James M. Wilcox for a forward thinking, tall building the skyscraper incorporated the main characteristics of an International style architecture. Called the United States' first modern skyscraper, and one of the most important skyscrapers built in the country in the first half of the 20th century, the building featured an innovative and effective design of a T shaped tower that allowed the maximum amount of natural light and rentable space. The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society's offices and banking hall featured custom designed furniture, including custom Cartier clocks on every floor. The top of the skyscraper featured the bank's boardroom. The building was the second high rise in the U. S. to be equipped with air conditioning. The skyscraper is topped by a red neon sign with the PSFS initials. Visible for 20 mile (32 km), the sign has become a Philadelphia icon. In the 1980s, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society lost millions. In 1992, the bank and its building were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). That same year, the skyscraper was 85 percent vacant. The FDIC auctioned the building off, and it was bought by developers to turn into a Loews Hotel. The Pennsylvania Convention Center opened in 1993 a block away. Conversion into a hotel began in 1998, and the Loews Philadelphia Hotel opened in time for the 2000 Republican National Convention.

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 new building. The proposal submitted 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 $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 among the first skyscrapers 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. 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." The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society occupied of the of office space in the building. The remaining office space was available for rent by other tenants. Over the years, the building with its sign became a Philadelphia landmark. 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 1994, the PSFS Building was looking frayed and much of Meritor's furniture and equipment was sold off at auction by the FDIC in 1993. That same year, the Pennsylvania Convention Center opened one block away from the PSFS Building and numerous new hotels were appearing around the city. Originally thinking of turning the PSFS Building into apartments, developer Carl Dranoff decided a hotel would be best after noticing a Marriott being built across the street. Dranoff hired Bower Lewis Thrower Architects who created a plan, which he took to commercial developer Ronald Rubin of the Rubin Organization. Rubin took over the project and hired Dranoff to oversee it. Rubin first approached Hyatt and after negotiations that lasted a year Hyatt decided to build an entirely new property at Penn's Landing instead. Rubin then approached the Loews Hotels chain. On April 11, 1997, developer Rubin, hotelier Jonathan Tisch, and Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell announced in the PSFS boardroom that the PSFS Building would be converted into a Loews Hotel. Over the next year, the conversion of the building into a hotel was delayed while Loews negotiated with the Rubin Organization to buy out its interest in the building. An agreement was formally reached in June 1998, and work began on the building shortly thereafter. After a year long delay on starting the renovations, there were concerns more delays would occur if the building's conversion turned out to be more difficult than first thought. The concern stemmed from the city's attempt to attract a political convention to the city in 2000. A key part of attracting a political convention was the number of available hotel rooms in the host city, and completion of the PSFS Building on time was an important factor. To be an effective convention hotel, the building required an extra for a ballroom and meeting spaces, without which the hotel conversion would not have taken place. Land was acquired along 12th Street and an addition was built. The decision to use the banking hall for functions instead of serving as the hotel's lobby was financially driven by allowing the hotel to rent out the large hall for events. When the Loews Hotel acquired the building, they acknowledged the regional significance of the sign, and agreed to keep the letters in place and illuminated. Philadelphia Sign Company was tasked with the job of servicing the massive letters by the new owner. The company was subsequently hired to create a LED fixture when the neon letters were found to be unrepairable. Originally, the Philadelphia Historical Commission would not approve the LED sign because of how it illuminated the carved letters, but a modified LED sign was approved in July 2015. The Loews Philadelphia Hotel contains 581 guestrooms including 37 suites in a total building area of 631,006 sq. ft. The hotel features square feet of function space in three ballrooms and fourteen conference rooms. The hotel also offers a 31st floor Concierge Library and fifth floor spa, pool, and fitness center.

The design of the PSFS Building elicited both early criticism and praise. In the March 1931 issue of T Square Club Journal Elbert Conover said, "The day will come when even in America, we will become skillful enough to meet economic pressure without forcing upon the community such ugliness and illogical designing." The PSFS Building was one of only two U. S. skyscrapers included in the 1932 International style exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Run by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, the exhibition was where the term International style was coined. However, Lescaze and Howe's design was not featured at the 1932 Architectural League of New York Annual Exhibition after the skyscraper was deemed as having an ugly and illogical design. Howe responded by saying "Like all institutions which have become traditional, it tends to resent change." In 1939 the building was awarded the gold medal by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects. While the PSFS Building would later influence other buildings, the skyscraper did not start a trend in banking architecture. Spiro Kostof said that the building was "too coolly self possessed, too intellectual perhaps to start a trend." After the International style became popular in the 1950s, the PSFS Building was called one of the most important skyscrapers built in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Called the United States' first truly modern skyscraper by Architectural Review in 1957, the PSFS Building was awarded Building of the Century by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1969. Robert A. M. Stern said of the building, "Nothing like it had been built, and only rarely had anything near its size been imagined in the vocabularies of either the first or second phase of the International style. PSFS is much more than a superb marriage of function and technological innovation within the constraints of a new vocabulary of form. It is a superbly crafted object, refined in its every detail PSFS is that rarest of phenomena of our time, a working monument." William Jordy said the building's uniqueness "appears in its extraordinary ambiguity, as reconciliation, synthesis, and prophecy." Jordy also said, "Although it does epitomize the coming [to America] of the European functionalist style of the twenties, this event occurred so late as to make it seem more of a synthesis of previous developments than a herald of new departures. Yet, as a synthesis, then as an American synthesis, PSFS is worthy of study today it is rather more innovative than its appearance, date, and provincial position suggest PSFS is not even quite the unadulterated exemplar of the International style that it seems to be. It depends as well on Beaux Arts theory, which it ostensibly repudiates."