The Drake Hotel, a historic 375-foot-tall, 33-story luxury hotel located at 1512–1514 Spruce Street at the corner of S. Hicks Street between S. 15th and S. 16th Streets in the

Rittenhouse Square Rittenhouse Square is a public park in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that is the center of the eponymous Rittenhouse neighborhood. The square is one of the five original open-space parks planned by William Penn and his surveyor Thomas ...

neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Pennsylvania was built in 1928–29 by the Murphy, Quigley Company and was designed by the architectural firm of Ritter and Shay in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style with

Spanish Baroque Spanish Baroque is a strand of Baroque architecture that evolved in Spain, its List of provinces of Spain, provinces, and former Spanish Empire, colonies. History The development of the style passed through three phases. Between 1680 and 1720, ...

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

ornamentation on themes surrounding

Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English Exploration, explorer and privateer best known for making the Francis Drake's circumnavigation, second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (bein ...

, including "dolphins, shells, sailing vessels and globes." The building is topped by a terra cotta dome., p.106 The building was originally proposed to be 28-stories, and the demolition work took place in April 1928. The first steel column was placed on site on September 1, 1928 and just four months later stunt reporter Vivian Shirley went to the top of the unfinished building on January 29, 1929. It was originally scheduled to open in June 1929, but the developers stated it was ready for occupancy on September 11, 1929. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on September 18, 1978. It was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on October 6, 1977. In 1998, the building was extensively renovated and converted to condominiums as "The Drake".

References

Notes

External links

* * * at emporis.com
Listing and photographs
at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings {{Authority control Hotel buildings completed in 1928 Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Philadelphia Register of Historic Places Residential buildings in Philadelphia Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia 1928 establishments in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia

See also

References

External links