Location: W Main St (opposite the foot of Granby St), Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:55pm

Transcription of marker: Construction of this customhouse began in 1852 and was completed in 1859, replacing an 1819 customhouse located at Water and Church Streets (now Waterside Drive and St. Paul’s Boulevard). This building was designed by Ammi B. Young (1798–1874), the first supervising architect for the United States Treasury Department, who established high architectural standards for federal buildings. During his career Young designed some 70 government buildings around the country, including the customhouses in Richmond and Petersburg. Departing from his more customary Tuscan designs, Young developed a rich Classical Revival design for this granite structure. Adapting a new material to traditional forms, both the interior columns and the capitals of the exterior columns are made of cast iron. All of the Federal agencies in Norfolk, including courts on the upper floor and the post office in the basement, were housed in this building until space needs prompted the construction of a new Federal courthouse and post office in 1900. The exterior of the building has not been significantly altered since its construction.

My impressions: This is one of those moments when I confess to a bit of fear. Unfortunately the drawing on the marker is the closest I came to taking a photo of the building, largely because I believe it is still (in part) a federal building, and while I’m still awaiting my permanent residency status, I still feel funny about doing things that might invite scrutiny. So I exercised caution, perhaps more than warranted. So, this 2005 photo, posted to Flickr by Tom Hammond under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, is your chance to see the glowingly-described building.

“U.S. Customhouse,” © 2005 Tom Hammond. Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. The marker is visible in the lower right of the photo.

All that out of the way, I love the way this building looks. It seems to me to be a typically American style; by that I mean that it isn’t a style that I saw nearly enough of back in Canada. I’m not quite sure what that says, but it’s a difference I think I’ve noticed.

Markeroni status: I have a request in about the Cannonball Trail markers, because most of them that I’ve found have not been in their database yet. This one might be in the database already under a slightly different name and I’ve sought clarification on that.