Still Image

This image shows in the foreground Furness Library, Penn’s first library, whose architect was the industrial age architect Frank Furness, with College Hall in the background. The library was built on former almshouse land and was dedicated in 1891. 

This image from 1888 shows the original building of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, which was completed in 1874 as part of the 10-acre tract transferred from Blockley Almshouse to the University in 1870.  

College Hall was the first University of Pennsylvania building to rise in the 10-acre tract of Blockley Almshouse property purchased by the Penn trustees in 1870. It was designed by the architect Thomas Webb Richards, built with green serpentine stone, and opened to students in 1892. 

Philadelphia General Hospital, formerly Blockley Almshouse, photographed in 1913, when the institution was transitioning to become exclusively a public hospital. The view is west and uphill from the trestle of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Courtyard of the Blockley Almshouse in 1900.

Blockley Almshouse Insane Department in 1899.

Blockley Almshouse photographed in 1893, looking west from the area of the railroad trestle that crossed former Blockley property in the immediate vicinity of the river.

Blockley Almshouse depicted in 1857 in this view from the river.

In 1834, the City moved its almshouse to the crest of a ridge above the Schuylkill River in West Philadelphia. The view is from the river’s east bank, with the Permanent Market Street Bridge shown at right.

This photo shows the wrought-iron fence with its marble and inlaid-brick globe columns that marked the eastern boundary of the Philadelphia General Hospital, today facing Civic Center Boulevard/Ronald G. Perelman Way. The fence, which extends for several city blocks, is the only surviving remnant of the sprawling institution that once stood on this site, spanning the years 1834–1977, serving first as the City’s almshouse for indigent poor, next as the City’s only public hospital.