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Anne works at Walker Construction Services, which is halfway down the block and across the street from the Guilford Building. In an e-mail, she explains how she knew what this was: "The bottom of the windows on the Guilford Building are predominately white however sporadically they are kind of a terra cotta color -- the top two windows in your picture are this color."

I e-mailed Arthur to see what sort of spy satellite he has that lets him see Elm Street from the District. No response yet.

The Guilford Building has a crazy history. It was originally intended to be a 17-story, 350-room hotel with a bank downstairs, but those plans changed. It opened in 1927 as a 13-story office building. (The architect, Charles Hartman, also designed the JP/LFG building up the street.)

A series of banks used the main level. The last, Northwestern Bank, left in 1980. AT&T had moved its Western Electric division out to the 'burbs in 1971. JP bought it in the early 1980s, then decided it cost too much to renovate. JP gave the building to Guilford County in 1988. The county sold it five years later for $110,000.

Here's a story we did in 2000 about the building, which is now a mostly occupied high-tech center.

Now, some more pics. The front door (sorry about the truck):

One thing I like about the building is the old school details such as this ...

... and this ...

... and this ...

and this around the windows:

More apologies for the grayness of the building. It was cloudy and rainy last week, and I hadn't banked any pics. Joel Gillespie took this picture on a sunnier day from a much better vantage point. The rest of Joel's downtown Greensboro collection is here. There's some cool stuff there that gave me a few ideas.