{"nrhp_refnum":"00000849","name":"Bell Telephone Company Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1827-35 Arch St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":39.957593032000034,"lon":-75.17058811699997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2000-08-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Communications","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A seventeen-story set-back skyscraper at the northeast corner of Nineteenth and Arch Streets in Philadelphia, built in 1925 as a Bell Telephone Company central switching and office building. Its architect was Eugene Stopper.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is significant for its role in the communications industry, as a central switching facility for long-distance lines, and for its architecture as an early reinforced concrete skyscraper in a restrained modern style. It is also described as an early example of the set-back skyscraper in Philadelphia and part of a group of modern Bell buildings.","narrative":"Seventeen stories of reinforced concrete rise from the northeast corner of Nineteenth and Arch Streets in Philadelphia, completed in 1925 for the Bell Telephone Company. Eugene Stopper designed the building, which combines a limestone and marble public base with brick piers and terra cotta parapets above. Its upper floors housed giant switchboards and operators handling long-distance calls, while the ground floor held customer service rooms laid out like a bank. The building is regarded as an early reinforced concrete skyscraper and as a notable example of Philadelphia's restrained modern set-back design. It is also significant for its place in the expansion of long-distance telephone service, which had reached coast-to-coast by 1925. The lobby retains marble walls, bronze doors and a bell motif tied to the company trademark. The switchboards were removed around 1970, and the building was later converted to other uses.","period_of_significance":"1925-1950","architect_builder":"Eugene Stopper (architect)","architectural_style":"Moderne","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Switchboards were removed around 1970 and the building was converted to office space; the document states it was later sold and adapted to a self-storage facility in the 1990s.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:37.875181-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/00000849.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000849/2d55b5fe97-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000849/2d55b5fe97-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bell_TelCo_Philly_Arch.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bell_TelCo_Philly_Arch.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997448","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Telephone_Company_Building_(Philadelphia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4883273"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/bell-telephone-company-building-00000849/"}