First Bank of United States Opens to Public After $40M Restoration
The First Bank of the United Statesis open again, and visitors can now tour the 1797 structure after workers spent three years and $43 million bringing it back to life. Craftsmen restored each pane in the. . .
The First Bank of the United Statesis open again, and visitors can now tour the 1797 structure after workers spent three years and $43 million bringing it back to life. Craftsmen restored each pane in the glass dome. When crews repaired the pillars, they uncovered the original marble beneath. Two temporary exhibits now occupy the ground floor. The Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel features over 133,000 artifacts spanning more than 350 years of American andPhiladelphiahistory. The Centennial Exposition in 1876 kicked things off. The State Department loaned artifacts gathered across 250 years of diplomacy. Textiles from Kenya sit near a dragon robe from Hong Kong. A clock from France rests on a table from Argentina. A chair from the Czech Republic completes the display. Drexel is building a permanent exhibit about Alexander Hamilton and America's first bank. Before Congress chartered this institution in 1791, every state printed its own money. Hamilton pushed for a central institution, as the new nation needed to pay off its massive Revolutionary War debt. It also had to stabilize its credit, which required a national currency. The building opened in 1797, starting a long tradition where the federal government showed its power through grand architecture. Congress let the charter expire in 1811, and merchant Stephen Girard turned it into a private operation. Workers remodeled the interior in 1902. The National Park Service took over in the 1950s and made it the first visitors center. Operations stopped in 1976. The facility now welcomes guests Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a. m. to 4 p. m. The address is 120 S. 3rd Street in Philadelphia.