We’ve previously written about the monument to Major General Peter Muhlenberg, colonial preacher and Revolutionary War hero. In 1910, a “monster parade” preceded Mulhenberg’s<\/a> dedication on the south side of City Hall. Everyone<\/em>\u00a0thought it would be there forever. While the heroic story<\/a>\u00a0didn’t change, location did\u2014twice. Patriots paying respects to the general would have to track him down. For a time, Muhlenberg stood his ground\u00a0at Reyburn Plaza<\/a>. Then he trekking out to Fairmount Park, where he can be found today.<\/p>\n The replica Statue of Liberty<\/a>\u00a0temporarily occupied a patch of pavement during part of the first World War. For all that fanfare, and there was much, she’s long gone.<\/p>\n So much bronze has been in flux over the years, enough to suggest there’s no shame in being uprooted.<\/p>\n Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ stoic Puritan, a full-scale likeness of Samuel Chapin, a New England settler who died before Philadelphia was even a sparkle in William Penn’s eye, commanded the concrete at Penn Square from 1905. Maybe Saint-Gaudens’ knew something. His statue looks like he’s about to walk off his pedestal. And in 1920, “The Pilgrim” as Chapin became known, did take a hike, in a manner of speaking, also making his way to Fairmount Park.<\/p>\n Scientist Joseph Leidy came and went, too. If his biography, The\u00a0Last Man Who Knew Everything<\/em><\/a>, was correct, Leidy should have known enough to secure a permanent place of honor in the center or town.\u00a0Find him today<\/a>, still holding the jaw of an Ice Age lion amidst the dinosaurs at the Academy of Natural Sciences.<\/p>\n Curiously, there’s one figure, below, that remains. When 21st-century pedestrians even notice “Baldwin,” as the granite pedestal tersely explains, they have to wonder: “Who is this? Why is he here? Why should I care?” Baldwin’s story was good enough to justify his installation in 1902 across from his locomotive factory at Broad and Spring Garden Streets. (That place was something to behold, turning out a finished locomotive every two-and-a-half hours.) When the plant left town in 1928, rather than having its founder stare at the vacant factory, the powers that be moved Baldwin<\/a> to the north side of City Hall.<\/p>\n And there he stands today.<\/p>\n Maybe it’s time to pose the monumental question in this case, too. Does Baldwin measure up to holding a spot on our most prime civic real estate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For more than a century, Philadelphia’s been playing a game of musical chairs with statues around City Hall. And it’s sure to continue, so long as we continue to ask monumental questions. Actually, sculptural comings and goings started a century before they cut the ribbon at City Hall. William Rush’s Nymph and Bittern\u00a0stood for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Puritan-Statue-6865.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Baldwin-Statue-42614.jpg\")
<\/a>