English: Postcard photo of the exterior of Hotel Allen, located on the northeast corner Center Square about 1912. As early as the 1770s, before the Revolution, there was an inn at this site. It was used as a drinking establishment for the settlers of Allentown as well as a political hall. It was the post office and also where the first Mayor of the borough of Northampton town was elected in the 1830s. Later, a larger hotel was built about 1810 and after the Civil War, the grand Hotel Allen was built in 1891. Hotel Allen was the hotel where politicians and business executives and bankers would meet and stay. The ground floor was also the home of the Koch Brothers Men's Clothing store, where fine clothes were sold for businessmen.

Beginning in the 1920s, more modern hotels were built in Allentown and by the end of World War II Hotel Allen had lost much of its gilded age glamour. It closed in 1946, and in 1947, the upper three floors of the hotel were torn down. The Koch Brothers men's store took over the remaining building and put a Moderne-style facade over the 1890s building.

In 1956, the building was acquired by the Allentown National Bank, which is shown in the tall white building just to the left of it. It was torn down in 1957 and replaced by the new First National Bank Building, First National being a merger of the Allentown National Bank and the Second National Bank.