Independence Hall received validation on this week in Philly history

In the Assembly Room of Philadelphia’s Georgian-style Independence Hall, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were birthed and debated and signed. It was America’s delivery room.

It’s where George Washington was named the first commander in chief, and where the Second Continental Congress green-lit the creation of the U.S. Marine Corps. And yet the refined colonial brick edifice still went underappreciated in its own time.

It took until 1948 for what is arguably the most historically significant landmark in the United States to receive its distinction.

Once the federal government moved to Washington in 1800, and Pennsylvania’s government pursued a new capital city, only state and city courts kept the candles on.

A painter set up a studio in the Assembly Room. His father took over the second floor, once a Revolutionary War hospital for wounded American prisoners, to display portraits and his natural history collection, including a stuffed grizzly bear and varieties of birds and insects.

The wing buildings and their connecting arcades were demolished in 1812 in favor of erecting storage centers. The library and committee rooms were also destroyed. Then the state wanted to fund its new capitol building by selling off Independence Square and Independence Hall.

“A proposal to subdivide the land into building lots met with howls from the citizens of Philadelphia,” Constance M. Greiff wrote in Independence: The Creation of a National Park.

The original paneling and other wooden architectural flourishes in the Assembly Room were stripped, dismantled, and sold off.

Preservation efforts in the 1890s were plagued by inaccurate restorations, which destroyed other original features and turned the building into a “ice-cream saloon” colonial, Greiff wrote.

It would take scores of grassroots campaigns to restore the building’s luster, and it would take persistent political maneuvering to persuade the folks on Capitol Hill to champion their own history.

The crusade culminated with President Harry S. Truman signing off on the creation of Independence National Historical Park on June 28, 1948. The government allocated about $4.5 million (about $60 million today) to create a space that embraced and showcased Independence Hall and its historic sprawl.

It included plans for a landscaped green space to the north, which required removal of unsightly and underused buildings.

It also established the string of historical sites to the east of the building on Chestnut Street, between Sixth and Second Streets, as part of the greater park. This included Independence Square, Congress Hall and Old City Hall, the American Philosophical Society, Carpenters Hall, and the Second Bank of the United States.

Nearly 80 years later, the mall stands as an enduring monument to American ideals.