February 24, 2004
Did you say 10¢?
Model Tobacco Factory
Jefferson Davis Highway and Hopkins Road
This building is no longer in use as a tobacco factory, but some web references suggest it may be in use, in part at least, as an office complex. Going by the plushy, emerald green moss thriving between the granite blocks of the steps up to the office door, it's not getting all that much use, which is unfortunate because it's a great door (image coming soon to a web log near you, if I can get a decent picture). This fabulous building towers above the neighborhood so you can see the words "Model Tobacco" from quite some distance away, hovering above the trees like a floating art deco apparition. The letters are much more enormous than you'd imagine, so your sense of perspective gets all messed up and you can't tell how far away it is. And don't the long columnar forms beneath the lettering look like cigarettes? Both ends of the building look the same, so you don't know if you're coming or going. According to one source, the building was designed by Schmidt, Garden & Erikson Architects out of Chicago and completed in 1940. Back in the day, Model Tobacco was big enough to sponsor a national radio show, "Pipe Smoking Time", which was hosted by Woody Guthrie, for as long as he could deal with being a corporate sellout (not long, about three months).
I decided to post the picture in black and white because the color version looked too much like a corporate postcard, only without great antique cars (click on the link, you'll be glad you did). My color picture looked like the sort of thing an aspiring corporate drone might buy at the company newsstand, mark with an arrow pointing to where his office is, and send to his parents. But in black and white—can't you hear the rattle of a projector and tinny fanfare, followed by a mid-twentieth century voiceover? "Model Tobacco brings you fine smoking tobacco products 'To light up your way' from their new ultra-modern facility in Richmond, Virginia, where tobacco is king…"
355 words | February 24, 2004 08:43 PM | Ghost signs