of sight along the diagonal Lancaster Avenue, which led to the Exhibition grounds in West Fairmount Park. This is reflected in the entrance Furness designed, which cuts the corner to face Lancaster. Market Street also intersected with Woodland Avenue here, though both Woodland and Lancaster are no longer city streets. The site was perfectly positioned to attract fair-goers' business, as Furness anticipated. By April 1876, construction was complete and the building was in operation. Use as a bank During the Centennial Exposition, a branch operated on the fairgrounds and handled the collection and accounting of ticket revenues, as well as currency exchange. By 1900, the bank remained the only national bank in West Philadelphia, posted profits of $274,392 (), and was directed by some of Philadelphia's "best known and most reputable business men. In 1956, the building came to be occupied by the First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company as its "Centennial Branch." First Pennsylvania was still listed as the owner in 1965 but by 1971, the building stood vacant and was controlled by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority. Reuse The building was acquired by Drexel University around "the time of the Bicentennial," and was reported in 1986 to be "a dingy maze of Drexel University administrative offices" for which Drexel was trying to find renovation funding. The plan was to turn it into a museum. Instead, after a renovation, it was rededicated in 2002 as the "Paul Peck Alumni Center," to house the university's alumni relations center, meeting spaces, and an art gallery showing pieces from the university art collection. Drexel used the bank in 2012 to host an exhibit of Frank Furness' commercial architecture. Architecture The Centennial National Bank's Venetian Gothic design by Frank Furness is considered, "a good example of his developing style," with the exterior retaining its original character though it has been altered. The design is a step in Furness' development of an independent style, a departure from earlier works which were in the British-influenced High Victorian Gothic style. Shortly after construction, the building was described in an architectural magazine: The method for making the "brilliant glass tiles" referred was invented by Furness himself. Glass was painted on the inward side, backed by a layer of gold leaf and then a layer of tin foil to hold the gold in place. This created colorfully reflective glass often used to suggest nature, as in floral ornamentation. In