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Girard Fountain Park
Girard Fountain Park is a 0.15-acre (610 m2) pocket park in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, at 325 Arch Street. It is open to the public during daylight hours and is maintained by local volunteers now incorporated as Old City Green.
The park was created in the mid-1960s after the demolition of four 3- and 4-story commercial buildings that had stood on the northeast corner of 4th and Arch Streets. A firehouse was built on the corner lots, while the lot formerly occupied by 325 Arch was cleared.
The park was improved using a 1976 grant from a city-held fund established by banker Stephen Girard (1750–1831) to improve areas near the Delaware River.
In 1971, a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin by local sculptor Reginald E. Beauchamp was installed atop the park's front wall. It was made of acrylic and covered with almost 80,000 pennies collected from local schoolchildren, and it incorporated a device that delivered a recorded two-minute speech on fire prevention at the push of a button. Penny Franklin was unveiled on June 10, 1971, by U.S. Mint Director Mary Brooks. Over the next two decades, the sculpture, also known as Penny Benny, became "one of the city's best-known landmarks."
The acrylic sculpture eventually deteriorated and became a hazard. For a while, it was kept from tumbling onto the sidewalk by ropes rigged by the firefighters from the firehouse next door. In 1996, it was removed to city storage.
By the mid-1990s, the park itself had fallen into disrepair. Its gate was generally kept locked by the Fire Department.
In 2003, the city's public arts agency commissioned sculptor James Peniston to replace the Beauchamp sculpture, with additional funding from the Fire Department and more than 1.5 million pennies donated by schoolchildren in 500 area schools. Peniston sculpted a bust of Franklin textured with casts of some 1,000 keys collected from schoolchildren. The sculpture is made of about one ton of bronze, which includes several brass nameplates representing Philadelphia firefighters fallen in the line of duty over four centuries. Called Keys To Community, the work was unveiled and dedicated on October 5, 2007.
In the summer of 2006, Old City residents Janet Kalter and Joe Schiavo had begun an effort to restore the park and return it to public use. After the new sculpture was dedicated, Kalter and Schiavo won the Fire Department's consent to restore the park's fountain. The work began in June 2008 and the fountain was restored to operation in August. The Fire Department formally returned the fountain to service in a Nov. 1 ceremony.
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Girard Fountain Park
Girard Fountain Park is a 0.15-acre (610 m2) pocket park in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, at 325 Arch Street. It is open to the public during daylight hours and is maintained by local volunteers now incorporated as Old City Green.
The park was created in the mid-1960s after the demolition of four 3- and 4-story commercial buildings that had stood on the northeast corner of 4th and Arch Streets. A firehouse was built on the corner lots, while the lot formerly occupied by 325 Arch was cleared.
The park was improved using a 1976 grant from a city-held fund established by banker Stephen Girard (1750–1831) to improve areas near the Delaware River.
In 1971, a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin by local sculptor Reginald E. Beauchamp was installed atop the park's front wall. It was made of acrylic and covered with almost 80,000 pennies collected from local schoolchildren, and it incorporated a device that delivered a recorded two-minute speech on fire prevention at the push of a button. Penny Franklin was unveiled on June 10, 1971, by U.S. Mint Director Mary Brooks. Over the next two decades, the sculpture, also known as Penny Benny, became "one of the city's best-known landmarks."
The acrylic sculpture eventually deteriorated and became a hazard. For a while, it was kept from tumbling onto the sidewalk by ropes rigged by the firefighters from the firehouse next door. In 1996, it was removed to city storage.
By the mid-1990s, the park itself had fallen into disrepair. Its gate was generally kept locked by the Fire Department.
In 2003, the city's public arts agency commissioned sculptor James Peniston to replace the Beauchamp sculpture, with additional funding from the Fire Department and more than 1.5 million pennies donated by schoolchildren in 500 area schools. Peniston sculpted a bust of Franklin textured with casts of some 1,000 keys collected from schoolchildren. The sculpture is made of about one ton of bronze, which includes several brass nameplates representing Philadelphia firefighters fallen in the line of duty over four centuries. Called Keys To Community, the work was unveiled and dedicated on October 5, 2007.
In the summer of 2006, Old City residents Janet Kalter and Joe Schiavo had begun an effort to restore the park and return it to public use. After the new sculpture was dedicated, Kalter and Schiavo won the Fire Department's consent to restore the park's fountain. The work began in June 2008 and the fountain was restored to operation in August. The Fire Department formally returned the fountain to service in a Nov. 1 ceremony.
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