Also known by its address, Eight West Third Street. Designed by Frank Pierce Milburn, it was the first steel-frame skyscraper in Winston-Salem and the tallest building in the city when it went up in 1911. In 1915, the O’Hanlon Building kicked it out of the top spot. To overcome that mortal embarrassment, the Wachovia Bank and Trust Company added a ninth floor, and in 1917 this became the tallest building again.
Built in 1926–1927, the Nissen Building in Winston-Salem was designed by William Lee Stoddart. It was one of several buildings in Winston that were successively the tallest building in North Carolina. Although it was finished only two years before the Reynolds Building, the two buildings seem to come from different centuries: the Nissen Building is decidedly conservative, belonging to the first generation of Beaux Arts skyscrapers.
It is fiendishly difficult to get a decent picture of this building. It faces north, so lighting is difficult; old Pa Pitt waited till sunset. It faces a narrow street, so it is hard to get the whole front at once. The picture above is stitched together from multiple photographs, with the perspective adjusted on two planes to make a tolerably realistic-looking image of the building.
