Rittenhouse Square Guide · Every Claim Cited
The square's story is usually told in fragments — a paragraph on a tourism site here, a plaque there. This page assembles the documented timeline in one place, from the Governor's Woods to Paul Cret's plan to last year's news, with a numbered source for every claim. We publish history the same way two blocks south, where our own house's archive holds 63 primary documents.
Five
open squares in Penn & Holme's original city plan
1825
renamed by City Council for David Rittenhouse
1913
Paul Philippe Cret's redesign — largely intact today
1981
listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The Name
The square honors David Rittenhouse (1732–1796) — astronomer, mathematician, and maker of scientific instruments, appointed by George Washington as the first director of the United States Mint. City Councils gave his name to the old Southwest Square in 1825, three decades after his death.
He was the great-grandson of William Rittenhouse, who in 1690 built the first paper mill in British North America on a Germantown creek — the settlement survives as Historic RittenhouseTown, up the Wissahickon in Germantown, a different place from the square that borrows the family name. And the luxury hotel on the square's west side is named after the square, not the other way around. One family name, three different places.
The Timeline
Numbers after each entry point to the source list at the bottom of this page.
1682–83
William Penn and Surveyor-General Thomas Holme lay out Philadelphia's grid with five open squares — drawn in their 1682 “Portraiture,” published on Holme's map in 1683. The southwest square is the future Rittenhouse Square.
Sources: 1, 4
1700s
Through most of the eighteenth century the southwest square sits in dense woods known as the Governor's Woods — cleared in the years leading up to American independence.
Sources: 2
1816
Neighboring residents begin improving the square — lawns are planted and a wooden fence goes up to keep out grazing animals.
Sources: 2
1825
City Councils rename the square to honor David Rittenhouse — astronomer, instrument maker, and first director of the United States Mint.
Sources: 1, 2, 3
1840
The first house facing the square is erected, opening the residential era that will make this one of Philadelphia's most coveted Victorian addresses.
Sources: 5
1854
The newly built row house at 1822 Pine Street — the house that publishes this page — is sold to merchant John Roset. Its deed chain, published in our archive, runs unbroken from that sale to today. See the chain of title
Source: the 1822 Pine document archive
1857–59
John Notman's brownstone church goes up on the square's northwest corner: cornerstone 1857, first services March 1859. Nine years later its rector, Phillips Brooks, writes “O Little Town of Bethlehem” for the church's Sunday School, set to music by organist Lewis Redner.
Sources: 10
1892
Barye's Lion Crushing a Serpent — bought by public subscription — is installed: the first sculpture in the square.
Sources: 8
1897–98
Sarah Drexel Fell commissions Peabody & Stearns to build the mansion at 18th & Walnut; she moves in by 1898 with her new husband, Alexander Van Rensselaer. The Fell–Van Rensselaer House still anchors that corner.
Sources: 15
By 1900
Some of America's most prominent families keep primary residences on the square — the peak of its Victorian aristocracy.
Sources: 2
1913
The newly formed Rittenhouse Square Improvement Association commissions architect Paul Philippe Cret, fresh from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, to redesign the six-acre square. His entrances, central plaza, stone balustrades, reflecting pool, and fountain remain largely unchanged today.
Sources: 2, 4, 5
May 20, 1914
A century-spanning tradition begins: the first Flower Market raises $1,250 each for The Children's Hospital, the Hope Day Nursery, and the Improvement Association.
Sources: 3
May 1914
Philadelphia's suffrage societies hold the state's first suffrage demonstration in Rittenhouse Square before marching to Washington Square. The movement had an address two blocks south, too — see the suffrage record of 1822 Pine Street. Read that record
Sources: 9
1915–1926
Christine Wetherill Stevenson founds the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 1915; in 1926 it moves into the Wetherill family's 1906 mansion at 18th and Manning Streets, across from the square's southeast corner.
Sources: 16
Oct 13, 1924
Mary Louise Curtis Bok founds the Curtis Institute of Music in three historic mansions on the square — and a century later, the conservatory is still there.
Sources: 11
1950
Henry P. McIlhenny — Philadelphia Museum of Art curator and later board chairman — buys 1914 Rittenhouse Square, filling it with one of the era's great private collections. After the Second World War, the square's mansions increasingly give way to high-rise living.
Sources: 2, 13
1976
Following renovations for the Bicentennial, the Friends of Rittenhouse Square is established as the park's nonprofit steward, working with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation — the Improvement Association's modern successor.
Sources: 2
1981–1995
The square is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. The surrounding Rittenhouse–Fitler Residential Historic District follows: National Register 1983, Philadelphia Register February 1995 — 1822 Pine Street is a contributing property.
Sources: 4, 12
2025
After the University of the Arts' 2024 closure, the Curtis Institute buys the Art Alliance building at auction for $7.6 million — the square's institutions still trading places a century on.
Sources: 14
May 1914
“…many of the city's suffrage societies, including the Men's League, held the state's first suffrage demonstration in Rittenhouse Square…”
Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Five months earlier, a resident of 1822 Pine Street — two blocks south — had lent her name to the suffragists' tax-resistance campaign, and a year later the Equal Franchise Society's treasurer was selling luncheon tickets from the same address. The movement that marched in the Square lived on these blocks.
The suffrage record of 1822 Pine StreetThe Cret Plan
Nearly everything you touch in Rittenhouse Square today — the corner entrances, the diagonal walks, the stone balustrades, the central plaza with its reflecting pool and fountain — comes from one commission: in 1913, the newly formed Rittenhouse Square Improvement Association hired Paul Philippe Cret, the French-born architect fresh from planning the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, to redesign the six-acre square.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation notes that apart from small alterations, Cret's design remains intact — which makes the square a rare thing: a great American public space still running on its original 1913 operating system. The sculptures arrived one by one to furnish it; their stories have a page of their own.
Sources
Every historical claim on this page traces to the sources below. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.
Penn & Holme's 1682 “Portraiture,” the five original squares, and the 1825 renamings.
Governor's Woods, the 1816 improvements, the 1825 renaming, the 1913 Cret commission, and the Friends' founding after 1976.
Penn State's essay: the Southwest Square renaming and the first Flower Market, May 20, 1914.
Southwest Square in 1682; the Improvement Association and Cret; the plaza, pool, and balustrades; 1981 National Register listing.
The first house facing the square (1840) and Cret's entrances, plaza, railings, pool, and fountain.
“Rittenhouse, David (1732–1796), astronomer, mathematician, and maker of mathematical instruments.”
William Rittenhouse's 1690 mill in Germantown — the first paper mill in British North America — and David's birthplace.
Cast 1891, installed 1892: the first sculpture in the square.
“…held the state's first suffrage demonstration in Rittenhouse Square before marching on Market Street to Washington Square.” (May 1914)
Cornerstone 1857, first services March 1859, architect John Notman; the 1868 carol per the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
Opened October 13, 1924; founded by Mary Louise Curtis Bok in three mansions on the square.
District boundaries; National Register 1983; Philadelphia Register February 1995.
McIlhenny's 1950 purchase of 1914 Rittenhouse Square; curator for 25 years, board chairman from 1976.
The Curtis Institute's $7.6M purchase of the Art Alliance building, January 2025.
The Fell–Van Rensselaer House: commissioned 1897 by Sarah Drexel Fell, Peabody & Stearns; occupied 1898.
Founded 1915 by Christine Wetherill Stevenson; moved into the 1906 Wetherill mansion in 1926.
Primary Sources, Two Blocks South
The same discipline behind this timeline — publish the record, cite the source, say plainly what isn't known — built the archive of 1822 Pine Street: 63 deeds, clippings, and documents from 1854 to today, free to read.
Corrections welcome
If you find an error on this page — a date, a name, an attribution — tell us and we will check the source and fix it. That's the deal we make with every page of history we publish.
From 1822 Pine Street
This guide is written from 1822 Pine Street — an 8-bedroom historic house two blocks south of Rittenhouse Square that hosts groups of up to 16. The neighborhood in these pages is our daily walk.
Keep Reading
What the Square is, how the park and the neighborhood fit together, and how to use both.
Read the pageAll eight works, from Barye's 1892 lion to the 2010 cottage gates — who made them and when.
Read the pageThe park's annual traditions, the blocks around it, and what fits a morning versus a full day.
Read the pageThe tables on and facing the Square, and where locals actually walk one block to eat.
Read the pageThe hotels on the Square, what each does well, and the whole-house option for groups.
Read the page