WCAU Studios

Built in 1931 as a broadcasting studio for WCAU, an affiliate of the Columbia Broadcasting System, this mixed-use building on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia combined a ground-floor store, rental offices on the second through fifth floors, and the radio station on the upper stories. Its facade expresses the new medium through a glazed central tower meant to light up as a visual symbol of the radio age, along with horizontal window bands and a carved relief of voice and music motifs above the entrance. Harry Sternfeld, Gabriel Roth and Robert Heller were credited with the design, with Heller specializing in radio studios. The building is regarded as one of the earliest structures in the United States built specifically for radio broadcasting and the first of its kind in the Philadelphia area. Its significance also rests on its Art Deco design, which is linked to Sternfeld's later career. A fire in the mid-1950s led to the facade being resurfaced in white and the tower being shortened, and most interiors were replaced, though the elevator lobby survives largely intact.