Independence Hall

Welcome to five hundred and twenty Chestnut Street, the very spot where the United States was born. You are standing before Independence Hall, a stately red-brick building that serves as a global symbol of freedom and the pursuit of self-governance. While it looks like a peaceful monument today, this site was once the center of a political earthquake that reshaped the world. Originally built as the Pennsylvania State House, this building served as the meeting place for the Second Continental Congress and later the Constitutional Convention. As you look up at the elegant Georgian facade and the towering steeple, try to imagine the heat and tension of a Philadelphia summer in the late seventeen-hundreds, when men in powdered wigs gathered here to debate ideas that would eventually change the course of human history. It was right here that the United States transitioned from a collection of British colonies into a sovereign nation.