In 1890, a group of some of Richmond’s leading architects were in competition for an important commission. The goal was a design for a Richmond Chamber of Commerce building to be erected at Ninth and Main. The Chamber wanted “…a building commensurate with the dignity and importance of the body and alike creditable to the city.” Noted architects Marion Dimmock, Charles H. Read, Jr., Carl Ruehrmund, Edgerton Rogers, and Walter R. Higham all submitted plans for the project, but Dimmock won the competition. Dimmock was highly regarded and was once termed “the dean of Richmond architects” and designed numerous hotels, churches, and houses all over Virginia.
Dimmock’s
design for the new Chamber of Commerce building proposed a seven-story Romanesque
mashup of styles and fenestration. The building was topped with a small tower
or observation point. From this vantage, all of downtown and the industry in
the James River valley could be admired. Placing an observation deck on a major
civic building has been a tradition in Richmond and was a component of what is
now known as Old City Hall, whose clock tower incorporated a public viewing
space. The current City Hall, built in 1971, continued the tradition and reserved
the entire top floor as a place to view the city below.
An early version of the Chamber of Commerce Building. Note the cupola as originally designed by Marion Dimmock. The cornerstone of the building was laid on August 25, 1892, with much ceremony and Masonic ritual.
The
Chamber of Commerce Building, pictured with the redesign of its tower. Outcry
about the unattractiveness of the small square tower meant its construction was
halted, and the tower demolished before the building was even finished. The Richmond
Dispatch reported in February 1893 that “The Building Committee of the
Chamber of Commerce met yesterday morning, and on the advice of Captain
Dimmock, the architect, and decided to dispense with the tower projection at
the corner of the structure. Therefore, as much of it as has been erected will
be taken down.”
Postcard view of the Chamber of Commerce Building, ca. 1910. The building stood at 823-827 E. Main Street.
As directed by the Chamber, Dimmock designed the building to house a bank and rented offices on various floors to generate revenue. The eastern side of the building had a multi-story courtyard to admit air and light into even the innermost office spaces.
A lone Richmond policeman patrols Main Street in front of the Chamber of Commerce Building in this photo, ca. 1910.
The
version of the Chamber of Commerce without the tower was used as the
illustration for the organization’s 1893 Annual Report.
The
Chamber chose to use an illustration of the earlier version of the building
with its square tower on the cover of their 1893 promotional book, The City on the James.
The
new headquarters of the Chamber had some interesting features, not the least of
which was a large auditorium. One description of the building predicted the
auditorium “… will be a very beautiful room with tiled and oak paneled walls
and oak-paneled ceiling.” The entrance to the auditorium was a dramatic,
glassed-in “bridge” that crossed the light court from the elevator lobby.
Dimmock’s plan for the fifth floor of the Chamber of Commerce Building. Note the entrance to the auditorium on a bridge across the light court. Image from the Richmond Chamber of Commerce Annual Report, 1893.
By
1910, modernity had begun to make inroads into Richmond and reflect on the
Chamber of Commerce building. Once a focus of civic pride, the 20 year old
building already began to look old and dated. The use of especially dirty soft
coal for heating downtown Richmond buildings brought criticism of the
appearance of City Hall and the “sooty condition of the old Chamber of Commerce
building…”. The Chamber announced plans to sell the building, and in April 1911
it was demolished.
The
intersection of Ninth and Main today, where the successor to the Chamber of
Commerce Building, the First National Bank Building, stands. Unlike its
short-lived predecessor, this building has stood at 823 East Main Street,
serving the Richmond banking and business community for 113 years.
The Chamber of Commerce Building was gone, but pieces of it still lived on in the Richmond streetscape. In 1908, the Richmond Press Company on Twelfth Street was destroyed by fire, and the principals of the business, Gibson G. Worsham and C. A. Zincke, purchased a brick factory at 201-207 Governor Street to replace their ruined facilities. In May 1911, they received a building permit to “put in a new stone front and make other alterations” to the former brick works on the hillside just behind the Governor’s Mansion. Worsham and Zincke salvaged granite members from the first floor front and side façade of the Chamber of Commerce and used them in the new Richmond Press facility.
Elements of the front façade of the former Chamber of Commerce building were repurposed as the front of the Richmond Press building at 203 Governor Street. Photo taken in 2006.
The
grand arched entrance of the old building was reused as nothing more than an oddly
elaborate framing for modern aluminum windows, and other elements were used to
create an asymmetrical first-floor façade. It isn’t known why this decision was
made to decorate an otherwise plain brick industrial building with blocks of carefully
carved James River granite. Perhaps the reuse of the Chamber of Commerce
Building architectural fragments provided a cheap alternative to hauling them
away.
In
late 1957 the building at 203 Governor Street was sold to the Commonwealth of
Virginia, and three years later it became a warren of small State agencies and
offices. Now known simply as “Building No. 8,” 203 Governor Street served the
State for fifty years, and the source of the oddly elaborate Victorian
stonework on the front of this otherwise unremarkable brick building was largely
forgotten. The granite pieces of the Chamber of Commerce building were
threatened in 1985 by its site being identified as the leading contender for
the location of a new Virginia State Library and Archives but that was later
changed to a more easily accessible site on Broad Street.
Sometime
around 2015, 203 Governor Street was finally demolished and its site is
currently a parking lot for State employees. At first, the scattering of large,
granite blocks along Governor Street today where the building once stood makes
it seem like elements of the Chamber of Commerce Building have once again escaped
the landfill. Close inspection, compared with photos of the granite pieces from
the original building, shows the stones on the site today were dressed a
different way. The granite blocks now on Governor Street are crisply polished
and show no evidence of prior use, let alone the scars of two demolitions.
Instead,
this scattering of granite seems a reference to the parts salvaged from the
original building. It is as though someone knew the history and placed these
granite blocks here not just as a parking lot border, but also as a subtle tribute
to Marion Dimmock’s vanished Chamber of Commerce Building.
-Selden
1 comment:
The cornerstone was located when the COC was demolished. Here is the newspaper account: Times-Dispatch, August 11, 1911
CORNER-STONE FOUND
Workmen Uncover Block of Stone of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation
The corner-stone of the Chamber of Commerce, the site of which at Main and Ninth streets is to be occupied by the twenty-one story building of the First National Bank, was unearthed by laborers yesterday. The corner-stone was laid August 25, 1902 (sic, 1892 is the correct year), and contained many souvenirs of that day and year.
The stone had been sought for ever since the building of which it was once a part was razed, but it was only yesterday that it was found. It was discovered in the northeast corner of the site, and was quickly exposed to view. It will be delivered to Colonel John B. Purcell, president of the First National Bank.
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