BeuryBuilding #13

The founders of the National Bank of North Philadelphia, which opened in 1920, chose as their first president the attorney Charles Beury, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law. The financial institution’s rapid success led to construction of Uptown’s first skyscraper, called the National Bank of North Philadelphia Building. Beury, meanwhile, had new presidential obligations. An influential trustee at nearby Temple University, he was picked for the executive job following the death of the institution’s founder. Refocused on the university, Beury remained the bank’s chairman until it was acquired by Bankers Trust Company in 1930. The successors renamed the building after him in September, then three months later became the first large Philadelphia bank to fail in the Great Depression. Beury guided Temple’s steady growth in his 15 years as president, and a building on campus also bears his name. His once-stylish Art Deco tower on Broad Street long stood abandoned, crumbling, and infamously adorned by a pair of graffiti artists who proudly tagged it with their noms-de-can: “Forever” and “Boner.” After decades of neglect, it is being renovated into a hotel.