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The Philadelphia skyline from the South Street Bridge, January 2020

Philadelphia, colloquially referred to as Philly, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 1,603,797 in the 2020 census. The city is the urban core of the larger Delaware Valley, also known as the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the nation's eighth-largest metropolitan area and seventh-largest combined statistical area with 6.245 million residents and 7.366 million residents, respectively.

As of 2022, the Philadelphia metropolitan area had a gross metropolitan product of US$518.5 billion and is home to five Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. Metropolitan Philadelphia ranks as one of the Big Five U.S. venture capital hubs, facilitated by its geographic proximity to both the entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems of New York City and to the federal regulatory environment of Washington, D.C. Greater Philadelphia is also a biotechnology hub. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange, owned by Nasdaq since 2008, is the nation's oldest stock exchange and a global leader in options trading. 30th Street Station, the city's primary rail station, is the third-busiest Amtrak hub in the nation, and the city's multimodal transportation and logistics infrastructure also includes Philadelphia International Airport, a major transatlantic gateway and transcontinental hub; the rapidly-growing PhilaPort seaport; and Interstate 95, the spine of the north–south highway system along the U.S. East Coast. (Full article...)

Rohm and Haas Corporate Headquarters in 2007
Rohm and Haas Corporate Headquarters in 2007

The Rohm and Haas Corporate Headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the headquarters for the chemical manufacturing company Rohm and Haas. Completed in 1964, the building was the first private investment for the urban renewal of the Independence Mall area. Only two blocks from Independence Hall, the building, designed by Pietro Belluschi and George M. Ewing Co., was lauded for its respect to the nearby park and historical buildings. Philadelphia's city planners praised the building as a standard for all redevelopment buildings. The nine-story edifice's most notable feature is its facade of translucent, corrugated sunscreens; held in place by aluminum lattices, the sunscreens are made of Rohm and Haas's principal product, Plexiglas. In 2007 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is today considered one of the best examples of the International style.

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The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Hamiltonian national bank. A private corporation with public duties, the bank handled all fiscal transactions for the U.S. Government, and was accountable to Congress and the U.S. Treasury. Modeled on Alexander Hamilton's First Bank of the United States, the Second Bank was chartered by President James Madison in 1816 and began operations at its main branch in Philadelphia on January 7, 1817 managing twenty-five branch offices nationwide by 1832. The building is part of Independence National Historical Park and serves as an art gallery housing a portrait collection of prominent early Americans painted by Charles Willson Peale and many others.

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Hamilton Disston
Hamilton Disston

Hamilton Disston was an industrialist and real-estate developer who purchased four million acres (16,000 km²) of Florida land in 1881, an area larger than the state of Connecticut, and reportedly the most land ever purchased by a single person in world history. Disston was the son of Pennsylvania-based industrialist Henry Disston who formed Disston & Sons Saw Works, which Hamilton later ran and which was one of the largest saw manufacturing companies in the world. Hamilton Disston's investment in the infrastructure of Florida spurred growth throughout the state. His related efforts to drain the Everglades triggered the state's first land boom with numerous towns and cities established through the area. Disston's land purchase and investments were directly responsible for creating or fostering the towns of Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Gulfport, Tarpon Springs, and indirectly aided the rapid growth of St. Petersburg, Florida. He furthermore oversaw the successful cultivation of rice and sugarcane near the Kissimmee area. Although Disston's engineered canals aided water transport and steamboat traffic in Florida, he was ultimately unsuccessful in draining the Kissimmee River floodplain or lowering the surface water around Lake Okeechobee and in the Everglades. He was forced to sell much of his investments at a fraction of their original costs. However, his land purchase primed Florida's economy and allowed railroad magnates Henry Flagler and Henry Plant to build rail lines down the east coast of Florida, and another joining the west coast, which directly led to the domination of the tourist and citrus industries in Florida. Disston's immediate impact was in the Philadelphia area, where he was active in Republican politics and a philanthropist, but his legacy is often associated with the draining and development of Florida.

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"I love Philadelphia. I was shocked at what a great city this is. For me, it is the cat's pajamas. I love everything about it. I love where I live. I love the people. I have been met with such kindness and affection here."*

George Dzundza

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