Know Your Neighborhood: Smythe Stores, 101 - 111 Arch St.

The Smythe Stores, 101 to 111 Arch Street, were built in 1857 for department store owner Samuel Smythe.

The Tiffany and Bottom Foundry in Trenton produced the cast-iron façade, which stretched across half the block. The design was inspired by Northern Italian Renaissance palaces, with pairs of arched windows divided by columns, and the five rows decreasing in height as they climb upward.

The original building was painted and sanded in imitation of stone. The design appeared in Samuel Sloan’s The Architectural Review and the American Builders’ Journal of March 1870, so he is assumed to be the building’s architect.

Tenants of the storefronts included the Aunt Sally Blended Tea Company, the Philadelphia Seed Company, and the Stratford Cigar Company.

In 1913, the central section of the building was demolished to allow the Arch Street trolley to loop around the building. The midsection was rebuilt by The Devoe Group using fiberglass and molds of the old section in 1984, when the Smythe Stores were converted into apartments.  Later converted to condos.

Philadelphia Register of Historic Places -- 8/5/1976