Rittenhouse Square

History & Background
In its earliest days, the Square, then called Southwest Square, was a pasture for local livestock and a convenient dumping spot for "night soil". By the late 1700's the Square was surrounded by brickyards because the area's clay terrain proved better suited for kilns than for crops. In 1825 the Square was renamed in honor of David Rittenhouse, a brilliant Philadelphian astronomer, instrument maker and patriotic leader of the Revolutionary era.

By the 1850's a building boom began, and in the second half of the 19th century the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood became the most fashionable residential section of the city, the home of Philadelphia's "Victorian aristocracy." Some of the mansions of that period still survive on the streets facing the square, although most of the grand homes gave way to apartment buildings after 1913