By the 1980s, Drexel’s unglamorous orange-brick architecture—seen here on the Stratton Building, Drexel’s first building west of the Main Building—connoted an institution that had lost its creative vitality.
Looking west on Chestnut Street at the University’s east entrance. Drexel’s brand appears on the “High Line,” which carries freight trains around 30th Street Station.
Anthony J. Drexel created the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry—the 1891 forefather of Drexel University—with the goal of providing working-class students with a balanced education and path of upward mobility.
The West Philadelphia Corporation, a non-profit coalition formed by local “higher eds and meds,” created and marketed the neighborhood of “University City.”
The University City Science Center was the nucleus of the West Philadelphia Corporation's University City branding initiative. Gaylord P. Harnwell, president of the University of Pennsylvania (1953-1970), appears at the far left.
