Philly skyline, with and without ‘PNB’


(Photos by Bradley Maule/Hidden City Philadelphia)

For more than 60 years, the giant neon letters PNB have advertised Philadelphia National Bank atop the skyscraper at 1 South Broad Street. Over the past few months (and long after the bank itself became part of Wells Fargo), those letters have been removed. Brad Maule, an editor at Hidden City Philadelphia, has this post-mortem about the letters and their legacy.

His essay includes before-and-after-PNB shots of the skyline, which I’ve taken the liberty of displaying with a slider above.

(By the way, Hidden City is in the last hours of a year-end fundraising drive. They’re a great organization that seeks to reveal and hold up for public appreciation and debate the complex built environment of Philadelphia. They’ve also published a few of my writings. If you feel like supporting them, their Indigogo campaign is here.)