that would subsequently be known as the "CoreStates Center" associated with the bank holding company. In the fall of 1995, CoreStates acquired another regional rival, Meridian Bancorp, at $3.2 billion their largest acquisition to date. George W. Strawbridge Jr., a Campbell Soup Company director, heir to the Strawbridge & Clothier department store fortune, and major shareholder in Meridian Bancorp, became director and largest individual shareholder in the Corestates Corporation, continuing an ongoing marriage between the bank and one of the region's most iconic companies, the Campbell Soup Company, that had in the 1970s made G. Morris Dorrance Jr., scion of the Campbell clan and prominent Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, socialite, PNB's board chairman. Acquisition by First Union In the rash of regional bank takeovers that occurred near the end of the twentieth century, CoreStates was then acquired by First Union Corporation of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1998. The CoreStates-First Union merger, at $17 billion, was then the largest bank merger that had ever taken place in the United States. First Union later bought Wachovia National Bank in 2001 and the combined company took the Wachovia brand name. Wachovia Bank, suffering losses during the financial crisis of 2007–2008, was acquired by Wells Fargo, headquartered in San Francisco, California. Headquarters building The company's original headquarters building is located at the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets in Center City Philadelphia and is now known as One South Broad. It has long been known for the oversized bell on its uppermost floor that once tolled noon over the city's financial district, once centered at the foot of its building but now moved farther west among the office buildings lining West Market Street. First Pennsylvania Bank's Centre Square twin office towers, with their iconic Clothespin sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, shifted the center of that district west at its opening in 1976. In 1973, the bank opened a second Center City office complex on Independence Mall at Fifth and Market Streets that became headquarters for its operations divisions. In keeping with the company's civic commitment to the City of Philadelphia, the bank simultaneously redesigned and rebuilt SEPTA's 5th Street/Independence Hall subway station on the Market-Frankford/Blue Line at the intersection's northeast corner, a station whose design subsequently won international awards for its striking combination of colors, textures, and materials. References History of the Philadelphia National Bank November 19, 1997, New York Times article on CoreStates Financial Corporation history