October 9, 2023: Tim M. and Jack F. read their newspapers near the Phillie Phanatic (rear) and Ben Franklin “selfie spot” statues in the Independence Visitor Center.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
My love of history - and Philadelphia - manifests itself in many ways in my own newspaper photography. Nowhere was that more on display then when I spent a year photographing all things Franklin to mark his 300th birthday in 2006.
More than 500 of those photos were processed through a software app to build a 1,200-image montage portrait that took up the entire front page of The Inquirer.
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With this year’s Franklin anniversary, it was published again.
It included busts and statues of Ben, the bridge, faces of his wannabes, names of businesses, schools, streets and cities, toys and video games — even a Franklinia alatamaha blossom.
Some of them are in the gallery. Plus, in the years since, I have continued to catalogue all things Franklin, so a few of those are here too:
One of 500 different individual photographs which were combined in a photo-montage made up of about 1200 individual images to form a tribute for his 300th Birthday in 2006. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Detail of some of the 1200 individual images in a photo-montage.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Longtime classical music radio announcer Ralph Collier interviews Ralph Archbold as Benjamin Franklin at the National Constitution Center on Mar. 24, 2005. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Big Ben at Franklin Town, 1992, by Alexander L. Generalis, Tom Miles. Public art on the bridge over I-676 at 17th and Vine Streets in Philadelphia. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Benjamin Franklin toys.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
An autumn sky Nov. 8, 2018 over one of the two "ghost structures" suggesting an outline of Franklin's long-demolished home in Old City. It was created for the Bicentennial by the Philadelphia architectural firm of Venturi and Rauch.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
New color lighting bathes the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in the Franklin Institute rotunda Oct. 22, 2008. The memorial, dedicated by Congress in 1976, features a 20-foot high marble statue of Franklin, sculpted by James Earle Fraser, which weighs 30 tons and sits on a 92-ton pedestal of white Seravezza marble.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Spectators are on the Camden Waterfront as the sun sets over Philadelphia behind the Ben Franklin Bridge July 18, 2022.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
A billboard outside the Camden home of the Philadelphia 76ers June 21, 2017, celebrates the NBA Draft. The Sixers had the #1 pick overall in the first round. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Benjamin Franklin is seated right in the middle during installation of Red Grooms' "Philadelphia Cornucopia," at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts June 16, 2016. Grooms created the mixed media environment “sculptopictorama” for the city's tricentennial in 1982.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The lecturn is empty after the ceremonial unveiling Oct. 5, 2007 of a new 9-foot bronze statue of Franklin which replaced the famous "Penny Benny" statue outside the firehouse at Fourth and Arch Streets. That original statue was made from pennies donated by Philadelphia school children in the early 1970’s. The new sculpture, designed and executed by artist James Peniston, includes casts of keys contributed by children from area elementary schools that were collected by the artist.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Bolt of Lightning: A Memorial to Benjamin Franklin, 1984 by Isamu Noguchi, public art at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge, 6th and Vine StreetsRead moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Franklin Towne Charter High School entrance lobby May 9, 2023. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Some Ben Franklin re-enactors pose for tourists in Independence National Park Oct. 27, 2005. From left are: Bill Roebling, Si Picker, Dean Bennett, and Bill Ochester.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Ben Franklins in the Inquirer, a promotioal poster for an Oct. 10, 2005 story in the Sunday newspaper.Read moreINQUIRER
Ralph Archbold, the "official" Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia for decades, in a 2005 photo. Archbold, who died in 2017, shared a birthday with Franklin (Jan. 17), and in a bit of whimsy, he married a woman who portrayed Betsy Ross, Linda Wilde, on July 3, 2008, at Independence Hall.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
An illuminated kite and key are part of the Electrical Spectacle at Franklin Square Dec. 12, 2019. Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
The sun sets behind Philadelphia on the Ben Franklin Bridge Sept. 20, 2022.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
A Franklin tree — Franklinia alatamaha — blossom at Bartram's Gardens. John and William Bartram named the flowering tree after their family friend after they came across it in Georgia in 1765. The tree was last recorded in the wild in 1803, so all known specimens today are descended from the seeds the father and son pair collected and brought back to Philadelphia.Read moreINQUIRER
A new-look $100 bill is displayed at Reading Terminal Market on Mar. 25, 1996, by William Stone, then the first vice president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank. It was the first major redesign of the currency since 1929. Stone used the bill to purchase a ham.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
