{"nrhp_refnum":"96000325","name":"North Broad Street Station, Reading Company","other_names":["Reading Company Passenger Station"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2601 N. Broad St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":39.99706084200005,"lon":-75.15471907299997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-03-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Transportation","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Classical Revival railroad passenger station on the east side of North Broad Street in Philadelphia, where Huntingdon Street meets Broad Street, built in 1929 by the Reading Company. It is a steel-framed, flat-roofed, Doric temple-form building faced with Indiana limestone and granite.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the station is significant as a late, luxury passenger terminal built by the Reading Company to compete with the Pennsylvania Railroad, reflecting the company's optimism about intercity passenger travel. It is also significant as the work of Horace Trumbauer, whose design is described as a departure from earlier Philadelphia station design in its pared-down monumentalism.","narrative":"Built in 1929 on the northern edge of Center City Philadelphia, the North Broad Street Station is a steel-framed, flat-roofed building in the form of a Doric temple, sheathed in Indiana limestone and granite. Twelve fluted Doric columns front Broad Street, and a round carved clock ringed with the signs of the zodiac sits at the center of the entablature, flanked by two carved women in togas. The Reading Company commissioned it from Horace Trumbauer, and it cost almost $1.5 million. The company built it to attract travellers on the Baltimore & Ohio's Royal Blue line and to rival the Pennsylvania Railroad, but passenger numbers fell short of expectations as automobiles, trucks and air travel grew. Its importance lies in its scale, its Classical Revival design, and its record of the railroad's ambitions in the years before the Great Depression. After the station closed to passengers, the building was converted to a motor hotel in 1969, and the rear addition now stands over the former marquee.","period_of_significance":"1929-1946","architect_builder":"Horace Trumbauer (architect); Irwin & Leighton (contractor)","architectural_style":"Classical Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Converted to a motor hotel in 1969 with a rear addition; the station no longer serves passengers and currently houses a community reintegration residential facility.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:36.035077-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/96000325.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000325/042564abe1-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000325/042564abe1-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jerrye &amp; Roy Klotz, MD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NORTH_BROAD_STREET_STATION,_PHILADELPHIA,_PA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerrye &amp;amp; Roy Klotz, MD</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NORTH_BROAD_STREET_STATION,_PHILADELPHIA,_PA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997558","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Broad_station","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7054296"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/north-broad-street-station-reading-company-96000325/"}