The First Bank of the United States just underwent a 3 year, $40M renovation that included restoring every single pane in the glass dome. The gilding is fresh. The pillars are patched and marble revealed.<\/p>\n
The ground floor is filled with 2 temporary exhibits.<\/p>\n
Items from the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel show how Philadelphia welcomed the world for its anniversaries, starting with the Centennial Exposition in 1876.<\/p>\n
The State Department loaned items amassed over 250 years of diplomacy.<\/p>\n
There are textiles from Kenya, a dragon robe from Hong Kong, and a clock from France sitting on a table from Argentina alongside a chair from the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
Drexel is now working on a permanent exhibit that will tell the story of Alexander Hamilton and America’s first bank.<\/p>\n
Before the bank was chartered by Congress in 1791, every state issued its own currency.<\/p>\n
Hamilton argued for a central bank that would enable the new nation to pay off its massive Revolutionary War debt, stabilize its credit, and establish a national currency.<\/p>\n
The grand bank building opened in 1797, beginning a long tradition of the federal government asserting its power through monumental architecture.<\/p>\n
When the bank’s congressional charter expired in 1811, merchant Stephen Girard turned it into a private bank and the interior was remodeled in 1902.<\/p>\n
The National Park Service took it over in the 1950s and made it the first visitors center, until closing it in 1976.<\/p>\n
The First Bank of the United States is now open to visitors again, Thursdays-Sundays, 11am to 4pm.<\/p>\n
The First Bank of the United States<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Instagram<\/a> Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n
120 S. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106<\/p>\n