The Larkin–Belber Building, also known as the Larkin Building and the

Belber Belber is a heritage American leather goods company founded in Philadelphia in 1891. History Foundation The Belber company was established in 1891. Its founders, Aaron and Henry Belber, scraped together $200 and started making luggage in a S ...

Trunk & Bag Company Building, is an historic, American light manufacturing

loft A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

building that is located in the Logan Square neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2003.

History

Built between 1912 and 1913, this historic structure is a twelve-story, reinforced concrete building with 295,360 square feet of floor space. ''Note:'' This includes It was originally designed by Buffalo architect C.J. Heckman for

Larkin Company The Larkin Company, also known as the Larkin Soap Company, was a company founded in 1875 in Buffalo, New York as a small soap factory. It grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called ...

, a soapmaker. In 1920,

purchased the building. The company subsequently hired local architect Leroy Berman Rothschild to place Belber's own stamp on the building. Rothshild designed large rooftop signs placed along the sides of the building. In its architecture as well as its integration of manufacturing, office work, and retail functions, the Belber Building represented a "landmark of twentieth century commerce and industry." Belber vacated the property in 1947 and Robert Hall Clothes took over the building in order to use it for production. Later, for a few years, up until 1964, the building was leased to the

Philadelphia Daily News ''Philadelphia Daily News'' is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which also owns ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', a daily newspaper in Philadelphia. The ''Dail ...

. In 1983, a developer acquired the building for a conversion to office space; however, those plans did not materialize. By 2004, the building had maintenance problems that led to pieces breaking off and falling onto the street. Orens Brothers Inc. acquired the property and converted it to condominiums.

National Register of Historic Places

It was added to the

in 2003.

Gallery

File:Belber Building.jpg, Belber Building, 1921

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Larkin-Belber Building Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Industrial buildings completed in 1913 Logan Square, Philadelphia 1913 establishments in Pennsylvania Leather industry

History

National Register of Historic Places

See also

Gallery

References