The People’s Building is quite an odd sight in old #Charleston, standing awkwardly above the graceful city skyline at its 126 feet of garish yellow Stoney Landing brick. The 8-story building was supposed to be the wave of the future when it was finished in 1911, part of Mayor Robert Goodwyn Rhett’s attempt to bring Charleston out of the doldrums after the Civil War. He was on the board of the People’s Bank on Broad Street, and the bank became the basis for the People’s Bank Building, as it was originally called. Sadly, the only redeeming quality of the building was a roof-line cornice that made it look similar to the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, but the cornice was damaged in the 1938 hurricane, and the cheapskate owners refused to restore it, and it became the eyesore of downtown Charleston that it is still today. Restoring the cornice might help, as would painting the yellow brick or stuccoing it. But in true penny-pinching Charleston fashion, the People’s Building remains an ugly anomaly in an otherwise gracefully scenic city. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt= “The Peoples’
Building”