The Philadelphia Inquirer
View of the clock tower of the former Philadelphia Inquirer building
Updated August 8, 2022 | By Matthew Christopher
Compiling a complete history of a newspaper that once claimed to be the oldest in the United States is an exhaustive task and one that is perhaps beyond the scope of this article (although former Inquirer staff writer Edgar Williams has a terrific account for those wishing to do further research). As best I can, I hope to give a brief run through of the highlights of the paper’s history, how I came to visit the Elverson Building at 400 North Broad Street in Philadelphia while it was abandoned and in the process of construction in 2018, and the current state of affairs for the building and the newspaper.
Though the Philadelphia Inquirer is not in fact the oldest newspaper in the United States – a claim they made based on an historian tracing their provenance through older newspapers back to 1771, which they later retracted – it is the third oldest surviving newspaper in the country. Founded as the Pennsylvania Inquirer by editor John Norvell and printer John Walker to champion Andrew Jackson and look out for the interests of the common man versus society’s privileged classes, the paper promised support for “home industries, American manufacturies, and internal improvements that so materially contribute to the agricultural, commercial and national prosperity."
Norvell and Walker were unsuccessful in finding an audience, and sold their publication 5 months later to Jesper Harding, one of the nation’s leading publishers of Bibles. Harding moved the newspaper to new offices at 3rd and Carter in a new six story iron and glass building. Harding later passed the paper to his son William, who changed the name to the Philadelphia Inquirer. William Harding obtained rights to publish serial novels by Charles Dickens, and Samuel Clemens (known better by his pen name Mark Twain) reportedly worked as a compositor in a back room in the 1850s.
Little, if anything, remained of the majority of the Inquirer's Elverson Building.
Part of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s rise to prominence can be attributed to its coverage of the Civil War, in which it supported the Union but was so fair and accurate in its coverage that both sides used it to keep on top of events. Between 25,000 and 30,000 copies were distributed to troops and special editions were issued for the U.S. Army. Copies reporting on the Battle of Gettysburg were even sold to soldiers on the battlefield who were fighting in it. However, after the war was over its popularity waned and by 1880 circulation had fallen from a peak of 70,000 to 5,000.
It was in this dismal state that the Philadelphia Inquirer was purchased by James Elverson in 1889, who was said to have bought “only a name”. Elverson, who had worked as a telegraph operator during the Civil War, had the political contacts and knew the reporters to make the newspaper successful again. Shortly after he bought the newspaper the Johnstown Flood occurred and was extensively covered, and Elverson’s editorial style was popular with the public. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s advocacy was instrumental in getting Broad Street paved and modernized, and in the creation of the Ben Franklin Parkway between City Hall and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
When James Elverson passed away in 1911, the newspaper was passed on to his son, Colonel James Elverson. As a tribute to his late father, Col. Elverson ordered the creation of the 18-story, Beaux Arts building at 400 N. Broad Street and named it the Elverson Building. Designed by Rankin, Kellogg, and Crane, construction began in 1923 and cost $10 million, which would be the rough equivalent of $170 million today. The Elverson Building was the tallest building north of City Hall and said to be the most modern printing facility in the world – soaring above the skyline at 340 feet tall, it had its own auditorium, assembly hall, and water filtration plant, in addition to living quarters for Col. Elverson on the 12th and 13thfloors. The first paper was published there on July 12, 1925, and the Elverson building earned the nickname “The Tower of Truth”.
The small room at the base of the clock tower that housed all of the machinery.
Col. Elverson did not get to enjoy the building long: he died of a heart attack in his apartment there in 1929, and ownership of the newspaper passed to his sister, Eleanor Elverson Patenotre. Eleanor was not interested in managing the newspaper, and put up 49% of the stock up for sale to the employees and sold the majority to Curtis-Martin Newspapers for $11 million.
Cyrus Curtis, the head of Curtis-Martin, was also publisher of New York Evening Post and several other papers, and merged the Inquirer with the Public Ledger. Curtis’ newspaper empire was hit hard by the Depression, and he defaulted on his payments and ownership reverted to the Elverson family once again. In 1936 the Inquirer was again sold to Moses Annenberg, who had started his career working for William Randolph Hearst. Four years later Moses was convicted of tax evasion and his son, Walter Annenberg, took control of the newspaper.
Walter Annenberg ran the Philadelphia Inquirer with moderate success through 1969, when the Inquirer was sold to Knight Newspapers Inc. for $55 million. The 1980s were another peak period for the newspaper; in 1982 Advertising Age proclaimed that the Inquirer “lay legitimate claim to being the country's best city newspaper” and Time trumpeted in 1984 that the Inquirer had seen “one of the most remarkable turnarounds, in quality and profitability, in the history of American journalism”. Between 1975-1990 the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes. However, in the 1990s print operations were moved to the suburbs, readership dropped, and cuts and corporate interference led to many reporters leaving.
A view of Center City Philadelphia from the roof the former Philadelphia Inquirer building
The rising battle with online newspapers took a toll in the following years. In 2012 the Elverson building was sold, and the newspaper went from 525,000 square feet of office space to 125,000 in the former Strawbridge & Clothier building’s ladies’ garments section. Since then ownership has changed several times; the current owner is the non-profit The Philadelphia Foundation, who plans to downgrade further in 2023 by moving to 34,000 square feet of office space at 100 Independence Mall. Since Covid, many workers are not expected to come in to the offices and can work from home.
The original plans for the Elverson building were to turn it into a 125-room boutique hotel with an attached casino. Licensing fell through for the casino and plans were scrapped. The city of Philadelphia had planned to move their police headquarters to the former Provident Mutual Life Insurance building, and went so far as borrowing $52 million to renovate it and completing work on the exterior before deciding to use the Elverson building instead. In 2018 work began gutting the interior, and as of July 2022 the work has cost $280 million and the move is not complete, although the press were given a tour. Inquirer staff architectural critic Inga Saffron noted the excellent restoration work on the exterior and the lobby but lamented that “one of the most inspiring newsrooms in America, a bi-level cathedral of light with 40-foot ceilings” was turned into “a warren of windowless, low-ceilinged offices”. There is another layer of bitter irony, as the home of the Inquirer, a publication that has been critical of police corruption and abuse of power, is now their headquarters. Saffron also pointed out that between the loans, interest, and work on the Provident building, and the $140 million in rent that the city will pay to the Elverson building’s owner culminating in the purchase of the building, the city will have spent a total cost estimated by a city councilman to be $630 million.
A construction worker moves piping in the remains of the lobby of the former Philadelphia Inquirer headquarters
I was fortunate enough to gain access to the building during construction – while this may not technically count as it being “abandoned”, you can take it as you will. Much of the interior had been stripped already and multi-story chasms yawned between the floors. Nothing remained of the offices, and any sense of orientation and identity were long gone. While the sense of scale and of seeing such a monumental building in the midst of such a transformative time were impressive, it was hard not to be a bit disappointed. Whatever it had been had escaped me. We rode a shaky construction elevator attached to the outside of the building to the base of the clock tower, marveling at the view of Center City and the ornamentation on the terra-cotta façade. The trip was invigorating and unnerving in equal measure. Ascending the dimly-lit clock tower, it was reassuring to see the room full of cogs and gears that turned the dial, and the decades of dust on the light fixtures. Even though it wasn’t much, at least some interior part of the building was still as it had been.
Emerging at the base of the structure supporting the massive cast-iron bells, I once again stared for a few minutes across the panorama of the city, stunning even on a gloomy November morning. Walking to the outer edge by the Greek Corinthian columns, I noticed the recently severed head of a pigeon on the ground- then a torn, bloody wing. There were shredded bits of birds everywhere. Though I joked that we had stumbled onto Gritty’s lair (and somewhat enjoyed the mental image of him hunched on a railing overlooking the city while munching pigeons, macabre as it is) I knew it was likely just a falcon, owl, or a hawk. It was unsettling nonetheless, and seemed portentous. The symbolism was a bit too on the nose: aside from representing prosperity, luck, and transformation, pigeons have been used as couriers for centuries. In fact, in the 1840s they were used by news agencies such as Reuters to circulate news until the telegram was invented.
Now, the peak of the building is home to a bird of prey.
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