College Hall is the oldest building on the

West Philadelphia West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Alhough there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the nort ...

campus of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

. Prior to its construction, the university was located on Ninth Street in

Center City, Philadelphia Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous wi ...

. The building was designed by Thomas Webb Richards and completed in 1873. The characteristic green color of the building is due to its composition of green serpentine stone. College Hall was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

February 14, 1978. It is also a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

of the

University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District The University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District is a historic district on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The university relocated from Center City to West Philadelphia in the 1870s, and ...

. The building currently houses the undergraduate admissions office, the university president's offices, the Department of History, and classrooms. The top floor of College Hall is also home to the Philomathean Society, a literary society founded in 1813. Although College Hall and the now-demolished Blanchard Hall were rumored to be the model for the Victorian Gothic mansion in

The Addams Family ''The Addams Family'' is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 unrelated single-panel cartoons, about half of which were originally published in ''The New Yorker'' over ...

cartoons, the cartoonist

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams ...

repeatedly denied the claims.

Gallery

File:College Hall and U of PA Library from the west.jpg, College Hall and U. of PA Library, from Locust St., ca. 1901. File:College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.jpg, College Hall, from the southeast, before 1910. Image:Benjamin Franklin statue in front of College Hall.JPG, Statue of

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...

in front of College Hall.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania campus School buildings completed in 1873 University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Pennsylvania 1873 establishments in Pennsylvania