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- Land of the free
- Broad-Exchange Bldg
- Parking innovation
- The old block
- "Peck turned a sweet propeller"
- National Bank Building
- Notch shot
- Straight ahead (right, left, left, right)
- Ship lifespans
- New service
- You Say Station, I Say Potato ...
- Iron Age
- Thank you, Cornelius Vanderbilt
- Grand Central Terminal
- If they made a movie of it
- Obsolete by then.
- Half the tonnage at the NYPANO dock
- Ravages escaped, bank notes signed and dated
- Chatham expansion
- Steepled in History
- Made by York
- No Summer Vacation
- Wait a minute ...
- $$$
- Joad on the Road
- Street Lights Survive
- Now & then
- More or Less? It's a lot less
- A new image.
- Same ol' story ...
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First National: 1913
Richmond, Virginia, circa 1913. "First National Bank." Rising 262 feet at the southwest corner of Ninth and Main Streets, this 19-story building, completed in 1913, was the city's first skyscraper. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
We have you surrounded
Here it is, in June, 2023, but it's hard to get a good angle, since there are many more tall buildings surrounding it:
Overdraft overhang
That is a pretty grand cornice ledge on that skyscraper! Fortunately, Richmond is pretty quiescent when it comes to temblors. The masonry overhang unfortunately can rain down with tremendous force when jarred by quakes out here on the unstable West Coast. I am not sure how the builders put them in place without hanging waaaaay out there. Cantilevered in, I suppose. I think the early Italian highrises in Renaissance-era Florence and Rome loved their cornices.
It reminds me of the old First National Bank in downtown Omaha (now the Orpheum Theatre) on 16th and Harney. Pale bricks, 2nd floor mezzanine, various coursing interrupting the ascent, escutcheons on the pilasters, and, to top it off, a wide cornice.
This is a pretty building and it would be great to own an entire floor so one could see points of the compass from a single lounge chair inside where thunderstorms are brewing.
National Bureau of Standards
Notcom - Too FUNNY...You just made my day.
SHORPY - Be sure to notify the National Bureau of Standards that we have a new unit of length/height, "The Richmonder", for them to use.
The surviving cousin
is this one -- the one in Richmond. The casualty (of the "First National Bank that reached for the sky in 1912" pair) is the one below -- the one in Pittsburgh (it was about 240 miles away, and if we measure that distance the way we measure the length of canoes, it would take about 5000 of the the Richmonder laid on its side to close the gap.)
The Keystoner was taller (objectively) and better looking (arguably), but there's a lot to be said for surviving.
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