he unsuccessfully proposed a $5 million, 14-story bust of Benjamin Franklin to be mounted on Belmont Plateau in the city's Fairmount Park. It was to be made of vertical stainless-steel tubes, six inches in diameter and one inch apart, that would have been lit from the interior of the sculpture. Among the privately held works by Beauchamp is a sculptural rendition of John Trumbull's painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, installed at the Philadelphia Protestant Home in the Lawndale neighborhood. Another is "Philadelphia Then & Now", a 53-by-68-inch painting commissioned by the Philadelphia Bulletin in 1947 to commemorate the newspaper's 100th anniversary. It depicts the city as it appeared in 1847, with the contemporary skyline floating in the clouds above. The painting was exhibited at Newman Gallery, hung for 25 years at the Poor Richard Club, shifted into private hands in the mid-1970s, and was offered at auction in 2009. Penny Franklin Beauchamp's favorite of his public works was Penny Franklin, a bust of Ben Franklin that was covered with 80,000 pennies collected from local schoolchildren. The work was conceived as a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Philadelphia Fire Department, the professional descendant of the Franklin-founded Union Fire Company, and an homage to the man who coined the phrase "a penny saved is a penny earned." Using clay, Beauchamp modeled an adult-sized bust of a long-haired, gentle-eyed fellow — the Franklin of the history books, wise and timeless. Then he reached into his penny supply and covered the entire thing with coins, creating a sort of chain-mail effect. Beauchamp completed it with a quarter-inch coating of fiberglass. The sculpture was installed in 1971 in Girard Fountain Park in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood, and dedicated in a June 10 ceremony that featured a speech by U.S. Mint Director Mary Brooks. "It was a hit ... a favorite of tourists and passersby on Arch Street for 25 years", The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote. A box that would play a recorded message at the push of a button was less popular with nearby residents, and it was eventually dismantled. The sculpture took a beating from children who climbed on it and vandals who pried off chunks of coins. In 1982, the city coated it with a defensive layer of epoxy and Beauchamp painted it to make it look "normal statuary green." "All those pennies don't do wonders for his