At the intersection of North Broad Street, Fairmount and Ridge Avenues in the Fairmount section of North Philadelphia stands a massive yellow Pompeian brick and marble building.

It's one of the earliest high-rises in the city, built between 1892 and

1894. It's 10 stories tall with grand open arches in the front facade, giving

passers-by a peak into the interior balconies within the building.

The architect? A man named Willis G. Hale.

Hale wasn't a Philadelphia native.

He was born in 1848 in Seneca, New York, where he studied architecture before moving to the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection when he was barely in his 20s.

He apprenticed under architect John MacArthur Jr. the man who designed my beloved Philadelphia City Hall.

If you've seen photos I've shared of City Hall on social media, you know it's an elaborate ostentatious, glorious creation.

John MacArthur's eye for going over the top

was embraced by his apprentice Willis Hale,

and it's likely the reason Hale's few remaining buildings

in Philadelphia are among my favorites, including the giant yellow

building in Fairmount.

Hel was commissioned to build a grand apartment building, something that would attract wealthy

Philadelphians who may not have fit into the old money neighborhoods of Rittenhouse Square and other parts of Center City.

I think the term at the time was Nuvo Reisch.

As far as I'm concerned, money spends the same way, whether it's old or new.

But that's not how some circles of society believe.

Hale's apartment building named the Lorraine Apartments was a state of the art structure for the turn of the century. It had

electricity. Each apartment had a telephone. Probably most appealing of all were

the elevators. So few buildings before that time were more than three or

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