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Norristown Public Square

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E. Airy, E. Main, and Swede sts. and Dekalb Pike

The center of Norristown retains something of its historic and institutional character with the austere Gothic tower and facade of St. John's Episcopal Church at 23 E. Airy Street (1813; 1927 altered). The post office is by Norristown architect Harry Gordon McMurtrie, with Charles Klauder as consulting architect. Designed in 1932, its main hall is ornamented by Paul Mays with WPA murals of agriculture, local industry, and laborers, representing the county in the 1930s. The nose of an airplane in one of the panels probably represents the local airplane plant. McMurtrie also designed the Norristown city hall (1926; demolished) and the YMCA on the town square. Around the corner at 415 DeKalb Street is the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, built in 1863 and significantly enlarged in 1915. Just west of the square at 110 W. Main Street is an odd Greek Revival survivor, the Bank of Montgomery County (1854) with its Egyptian-influenced octagonal columns supporting a classical pediment.

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Data

What's Nearby

Old Montgomery County Jail
Montgomery County Courthouse
First Presbyterian Church
King of Prussia Mall and The Courts at King of Prussia
Norriton Presbyterian Church

Citation

George E. Thomas, "Norristown Public Square", [Norristown, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-MO24.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 204-204.

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