In the 1960s, Ellis,Stone was purchased by the Thalhimer’s chain, which changed the store’s name but left the Ellis, Stone signs on the building’s exterior walls. Thalhimer’s left downtown in the 1970s and moved to Friendly Shopping Center, where it was later purchased by the Hechts chain. More recently, Hechts became Macy’s. The Ellis, Stone signs left behind on the old building — now renovated for social functions in a grand ballroom — serve as a link in the store’s evolution to Macy’s. The name Ellis, Stone also can be barely made out on the back of a building on the opposite side of South Elm. The building was the store’s location before it moved across the street in 1949. One of the ghostly buildings downtown is the Guilford Building, a vintage high-rise across the street from Silver’s. On the South Elm and Washington Street sides are etched in stone “Greensboro Bank & Trust Co.,” the building’s anchor tenant and namesake when the structure opened in 1927. The Great Depression drained the bank, and it closed in 1933. Other banks later occupied the ornate brass banking room off the main lobby, starting in the late 1930s with Guilford National Bank and followed more than 30 years later by Northwestern Bank. Each covered the GB&T signs with their own. Hallimar Properties, a family owned enterprise, bought the almost vacant building in 1993. By then, Northwestern had been bought in 1985 by First Union, which closed the Guilford Building operation, although a Northwestern sign remains on the building’s south wall. Hallimar began restoring the building floor by floor. It uncovered the Greensboro Bank & Trust signs. The name still looms large. Yet, “Only once or twice have people asked, ‘Is this Greensboro Bank and Trust and where is it?’” says Diana Poston, a member of the family that owns the historic building. The building’s present name is derived from Guilford National Bank, even though the bank has been gone for nearly half a century. Guilford Bank’s name survives, however, on a night deposit book embedded in the front facade. Guilford’s lobby contains a now rare but once common device that one could call a “ghost object.” It’s a mail chute. Letters and packages came tumbling down 11 floors into a magnificent brass mailbox mounted between the elevator shafts. The chute remained in use for a while after Hallimar Properties bought the building. But then someone dropped an object from high in the building just as the mail carrier was emptying the mailbox. The object whacked him on the arm. On the post office’s advice, the chute and the brass box decorated with an eagle were sealed. Another wonderful brass box in the lobby now handles the mail. “It has intrinsic and historic value,” Poston says of the chute, as well as the Greensboro Bank & Trust signs and Guilford Bank night deposit box.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Across the railroad tracks in the 500 block of South Elm, painted signs remain for South Side Hardware, which was there from the early 1900s until 1995. At the end of the alley beside the former hardware store is a small brick structure, a ghost object. It was a dynamite safe. The store wisely stored its explosives, bought by farmers for clearing stumps, outside the building. Across the street, at 514 S. Elm, a ghost object stands at what was Fordham’s Drug, which operated from 1898 to 2002. The store’s decor stayed unchanged the whole time, with a 1902 soda fountain serving CocaColas and cherry smashes mixed at the counter. The ghost symbol is an apothecary cup at the apex of the facade. Cups like it were once common as symbols of pharmacies early in the 20th century, but are rare in this era of look-alike chain drugstores.
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t the nearby railroad crossing, the name “Southern” for Southern Railway appears over the door of a classy building that was the railroad’s passenger depot from 1899 to 1927. It was replaced by a new depot on East Washington, which is now the city’s transportation center for buses and Amtrak trains. The Washington Street station closed in 1979 and stayed vacant for years until it was revitalized as the transportation center. At the top of the imposing columns at the entrance, the name Southern Railway remains. So does a Southern Railway arrival and departure board in the main concourse, although Southern — now merged into Norfolk Southern Railway — hasn’t run a passenger train since 1979. Time has run out for B.B. (Byron) Eaton, but his name still appears as a watchmaker on the steps leading to the second floor of the building at 302 S. Elm St. Many old Greensboro residents came of age when many second and third floors of South Elm buildings were occupied by dentists, doctors, lawyers, tailors and craftsmen such as Eaton. People knew if they were at the right place as they followed the names painted inside the stair step. They found Eaton at the top, in his shop, bent over a work bench repairing watches. As is nearly always the case, ghost signs and outdated objects bear no relationship to present tenants. Perhaps the most contradictory sign is at 245 E. Friendly Ave., two blocks east of North Elm Street. The entrance over the door of the large building says “Fruits * Produce.” Under it is a cast iron strip sculpted with fruit baskets and other related objects. Until the late 1960s, this was W.I. Anderson Co., a wholesale produce company. The sign remained as Duke Power occupied the building for years, followed more recently by a charter school, now closed. A law firm is now one of the building’s occupants. Clients enter under the “Fruits * Produce” sign. Maybe it’s appropriate. After all, a visit to a law firm often requires plenty of lettuce. And the grocer’s scales sculpted in a cast iron strip could be interpreted as the scales of justice. Back at Design Archives, not to be confused with Coble’s Hardware, Kit Rodenbough realizes another ghost sign has emerged over the entrance above the Coble sign. It says “Ellenburg and Shaffer Glass Art Studio.” This was the tenant before her business arrived. “I’m going to leave it,” she says. “I love leaving the old stuff behind.” OH
October/November 2011
O.Henry 45