The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Building

The building is located at the Fourth Street end of the block between Main and Church Streets. The building's address is on Main Street (the main entrance is pictured right where those three autos are parked). Fourth Street actually runs downhill from Main Street to Church Street; the result of this is that the Reynolds Building is 21 stories tall on the Main Street side, but 22 stories tall on the Church Street side.

When the building opened, only about half the space was occupied by the R.J. Reynolds Company. Other tenants included an industrial bank, a haberdashery (a haberdashery! The best we can do now is this.), a dentist, a railway ticket office and a beauty parlor. Later occupants would include a Western Union office, a drugstore, a stockbrokerage, and (of course) several law firms. The last non-R.J. Reynolds tenant to leave the building was architect William Roy Wallace. He closed his office in 1982 at the age of 93.

A few other bits about the R.J. Reynolds Building:

• On the Church Street side, it is 395 feet from the ground to the top of the flagpole.
• Total area of the building is 313,995 square feet.
• The building is clad in Indiana limestone, and the lobby is adorned with marble from Missouri, Belgium, and France.
• The approximately 1,000 windows make up 40% of the building's exterior.
• When completed, the R.J. Reynolds Building was the tallest building in North Carolina, and remained so until 1965.
• The building was named "Building of the Year" in 1929 by the National Association of Architects; in 1984 it won the award for the best restoration from the Art Deco Society of New York.

Take a look at the back of this postcard: It was originally purchased just a block west on Fourth Street from the RJR Building–at O'Hanlon's Drug Store!