After visiting our first two landmarks in Philly, Hanna and I stopped for a quick snack and eventually walked the short distance down Chestnut Street and then up South 5th Street to our next stop The Bourse Building.

For a little history on this building, the Philadelphia Bourse was originally a commodities exchange founded in 1891 and was modeled after the Bourse in Hamburg, Germany.  It stopped functioning as a commodities exchange in the 1960s, but continued to operate as an office building until the late 1970s. It was then sold and remodeled to include retail stores on the floors closer to street level.

On the main floor that you access upon entering from either 4th or 5th Street looks like of like a food court you would find at any shopping mall.  There were some Philly souvenir shops, a cheese steak stand (of course) and some other food counters with plenty of tables and seating towards the middle.  Towards the 4th Street side of the building was a candy store and right outside was the penny machine I had been told was located in the building.

Hanna helped me turn the handle of the machine as we pressed out newest set of pennies.  She really likes these pennymen machines, but I think it’s because of the clicking sound the gears make as you turn the handle.

The four designs pressed nicely and were Philadelphia themed:  The Betsy Ross House, An American Flag, The Liberty Bell and Benjamin Franklin.  As we turned to leave a couple asked is I could help them with the machine.  It ended up they were over visiting from the UK and had seen penny machines around the city but weren’t sure about the correct coins to use.  I helped go through their loose change until we came up with enough quarters and pennies that the were able to press the four designs.  They were very gracious and thanked us for our help.

With a good deed accomplished for the day Hanna and I grabbed a bag of cotton candy from the candy store and made out way back out to the street.  The morning had started out a little chilly but by this time it was starting to warm up nicely and made the walk to our next destination a little easier.