Second Bank
of the
United States
Second Bank of the United States
Between 4th and 5th Streets, the splendor of the Second Bank of the United States confronts us. It is a superb example of the Greek Revival and one of Philadelphia's most handsome buildings. The architect was the same William Strickland who designed the Philadelphia Merchant's Exchange and the steeple of Independence Hall. The bank was built between 1819 and 1824. Its facades are adaptations of the Parthenon with north and south Doric porticoes.
interior
Inside, the great banking room has a barrel-vault ceiling springing from Ionic colonnades. Bought by the federal government in 1844, it was used as the Custom House until 1934 and is popularly known in Philadelphia as "the old Custom House."
the old Custom House
Today the bank houses the portrait gallery, containing over one hundred Revolutionary and Federal portraits. Many of the portraits were painted by noted artist Charles Willson Peale and once hung in his eponymous Peale Museum — for a time located on the upper floor of Independence Hall.
Peale Gallery
William Penn
Philadelphia Market
George Washington
Martha Curtis Washington
John Marshall
Patrick Henry
John Jay
Thomas Jefferson
Gouverneur Morris
Thomas Paine
David Rittenhouse
Robert Fulton
William Clark
Meriwether Lewis
Henry Knox
Robert Morris
Alexander Hamilton
Benjamin Franklin
John Paul Jones
Marquis de Lafayette
Richard Henry Lee
James Madison
Horatio Gates
Benjamin Rush
John Hancock
Baron von Steuben
Nathaniel Greene
Zebulon Montgomery Pike
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