Philadelphia began the bicentennial year with a Liberty Bell extravaganza. For months, local media had featured story after story about the planned New Year’s Day move of the 2,080-pound icon from Independence Hall to the new glass-and-steel Liberty Bell Pavilion across the street. At the risk of repeating one of the most overused metaphors of 1976, this is how Philadelphia planned to ring in the year. In November 1975, the Franklin Institute, which had been put in charge of the hundred-yard dash, had X-rayed the cracked bell in order to minimize the chances of further damage. In December, the Six Million Dollar Man (a fictional bionic television character) had joined the effort to protect and defend the bell, preventing a disgruntled scientist from blowing it up in an episode titled “The Price of Liberty.”
Even the Six Million Dollar Man could not stop Inquirer critic Thomas Hine, who commented on the last day of 1975 that the bell was “perhaps the only totally useless thing that we, as a nation, revere.” No living person had ever heard it ring, he noted, and “unlike Independence Hall, it can neither shelter you from the rain or give you an insight into the sort of environment inhabited by the men who founded our nation.” Instead, “its meaning is symbolic, and in our own minds.” He continued, “Its meaning is in its silence and our faith. It is a holy object, not because it has had any brush with the Deity, or even with George Washington’s denture breath, but because we as a people have consented to make it so.” Hine’s comments echoed key words from the Declaration of Independence, suggesting that we the people had consented to be governed by a silent bell.
Hine was not, however, a fan of the bell’s new home. He praised the architects for designing “a place of veneration” and “an impressive experience,” but while he thought it successful as a “place of pilgrimage” for tourists, he predicted that Philadelphians would not like it. From the vantage point of Market Street, the building was “all roof ” and obscured the view of Independence Hall. Other sight lines were better, and the building would be “particularly attractive at night, when it will be illuminated from within.” Hine was not nearly as critical of the pavilion as he had been of the Visitors Center, but his comments struck a discordant chord when bicentennial boosters were hoping for harmony.
Bicentennial boosters also were hoping for good weather on New Year’s Eve, which was as realistic as their hopes for generous federal funding had been. In the end, Mother Nature was as uncooperative as Uncle Sam. Some blamed the fact that P76 had turned down a request to participate by the Chinese Cultural Center’s Philadelphia Dragon Club, whose colorful hundred-foot mascot was hoping to welcome the Year of the Dragon. As one observer explained, “It shows what can happen when you anger a dragon.” In the early evening, there was a dinner for Friends of Independence National Historical Park at the new City Tavern, not yet open to the public; a dance at the US Mint; and services at seven nearby churches and a synagogue. A concert by the All-Philadelphia Boys Choir on a bandstand next to Independence Hall was canceled because of the weather, but thousands of people braved the freezing temperatures, fierce winds, and tight security to celebrate the new year, the bicentennial year, and the Liberty Bell’s move.
To mark the beginning of 1976, the Penn Mutual Tower’s lighted outdoor elevator moved upward as the crowd counted down the final seconds of 1975 and then sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Philadelphia’s police commissioner estimated that forty thousand people were there, though others thought the number was much lower. As workers prepared to move the bell, the Orange Glen High School Band from Escondido, California, played the national anthem. The US Army Chorus, scheduled to perform outside, moved inside the new pavilion, their voices shared over loudspeakers to the cold and drenched spectators outside. Fireworks planned for midnight and 12:30 a.m. were canceled because of the weather.
Just before midnight, the doors of Independence Hall opened and there was the Liberty Bell, dressed for the weather in clear plastic. The Centennial Bell in the Independence Hall tower tolled thirteen times, in honor of the original states, and hundreds of bells around the city soon rang. Just after midnight, the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, in colonial drag, led the bell’s procession, illuminated by candles and flashlights, down a ramp and across Chestnut Street. After reaching the new pavilion, workers hung the bell in its new home, where it was visible from outdoors through a large window. Spectators willing to stand in line were allowed to see and touch it. By the end of New Year’s Day, 12,500 people had visited the bell, breaking the one-day record of 11,000. The Bulletin concluded its report on the Liberty Bell’s move by riffing on the words commonly (but falsely) attributed to Paul Revere: “The tourists are coming. The tourists are coming.”
Reprinted with permission from Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the1970s by Marc Stein, published by The University of Chicago Press. © 2026 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
