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Circa 1910: The Life Insurance Co. of Virginia building, under construction here at upper left, became part of the General Assembly Building. (Photo courtesy the Cook Collection, The Valentine)
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1996: Betty Jo McAllister (left), assistant Senate page supervisor, and Senate Page Dionne Blakeney (right) prepare documents. (Photo courtesy Lindsay Potts Reames)
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2021: A rendering shows the 15-story structure that will replace the old General Assembly Building. (Image courtesy Michael McCann for Robert A.M. Stern Architects)
Those who trod its halls and rode its sometimes inconvenient elevators called it “The GAB,” which stood for the General Assembly Building. Like a bill with unrelated riders, the conglomeration contained four separate structures that the state in 1975 designated as one. The weary, asbestos-afflicted parts will start coming down in January; plans call for only one antique section to grace the new building, which is to be dominated by a 15-story tower.
Preservation Virginia placed the GAB on its 2016 list of Most Endangered Historic Places. “The current building was built in three stages,” went the group’s plea for redemption, “and includes the facades of the 1912 Life Insurance Company of Virginia building, designed by Alfred Charles Bossom of Clinton and Russell; the 1923 [Beaux Arts] high-rise addition accessible from Broad Street; and the Marcellus Wright Jr. concrete and steel-frame modernist addition of 1965. Taken together, the buildings represent the architectural evolution of public architecture in downtown Richmond.”
Architectural historian Robert Winthrop says the question is: “How can the state own a building for 40 years, during which time they deferred maintenance until the dilapidated condition requires demolition?”
The GAB sometimes exasperated those working there, from veteran legislators to youthful pages who at first found the structure to be a maze. Richmond-based political consultant Rob Jones, who in 1981 served as a page, says, “Being the explorers, we learned our way around very fast.”
Once, when working on a resolution, they arrived at 5 a.m. to use a typewriter, and the indulgent Capitol Police let them in. Jones remembers, “Later that day, we got called in by then-Senate Deputy Clerk Susan Clarke (now Schaar, the Senate clerk) and were given a very stern lecture about being on the streets of Richmond at that hour.”
In years past, collating the streams of bill copies was done by hand, on tables in the basement. “We didn’t do stapling,” says Bladen Finch, a former page who now runs the Senate page program. “We just put them in numerical order and took them to their destination.” Finch is collecting memories from pages for a commemorative book.
Stories abound. “Every session is unique,” says lobbyist Will Frank. “You see minor celebrities in the halls: Wayne Newton, Erik Estrada.” Frank remembers sitting in a committee room while a gun-rights debate went on. He says, “I noticed the guy next to me has this assault rifle, and he was so bored he was nearly asleep with his chin resting on the butt of his gun.”
By 2013, when Carrie Ann Alford served as an aide to Northern Virginia Sen. Linda Todd “Toddy” Puller, building occupants received admonishment not to touch the walls. “The building [was] full of mold,” she recalls. “There were holes in the ductwork where birds could get in.” During the 2015 session, a bird became trapped in Puller’s office. Alford called the Department of General Services (DGS), to remove it before Puller returned. The small bird lodged itself under a sofa, and, for more than an hour, the workers tried to lure it into a cage. Alford finally went to the office of Roanoke-based Sen. John Edwards and sought help from Legislative Assistant Jennifer Boyd. Alford recounts, “I said, ‘Hey, country girl, you need to come get this bird out because the DGS guys don’t know what they’re doing.’ ” Boyd shooed away the workmen, and, wearing a paisley dress, within minutes retrieved the bird. Released outside, it swerved on foot, disoriented, almost into the path of a bus.
“At least it lived another day,” Alford says.
The same cannot be said for the buildings. All that will remain is the facade on the southeastern corner facing Capitol Square that is part of the original Life Insurance Co. of Virginia offices. The design details include three-story Corinthian pilasters embellished by American eagles, cherubs and winged horses — the only ornamental Pegasus figures in town. How their lofty symbolism influenced thinking in the legislature is unclear.
The discussion between preservationists and state government about what to keep “was hotly debated and contentious,” says Richmonder and architectural historian Justin Gunther of the Capitol Square Preservation Council. “Each phase of the building has architectural merit, depending on whether you’re a modernist or not. Nodding to Capitol Square, the most important facade is that 1912 portion of the building.”
Known as Life of Virginia, the insurance company's growth necessitated a 1965 expansion that resulted in razing the 1,200-seat 1911 Lyric Theater at Broad and Ninth streets. Winthrop calls the successor building by Marcellus Wright & Partners “the most sensitively designed high-rise in the city.” The windows get shorter at each floor, resembling a computer punch card. This became a natural fit for another tenant, International Business Machines (IBM). The General Assembly occupied that building and the others in the complex starting in 1975. Life of Virginia moved out and went through a series of owners and names until, by 2006, it was Genworth Life and Annuity Co.
Schaar, the Senate clerk, says she didn’t think she had much affection for the old place until this past summer, when its furnishings and fixtures went up for sale. She moved around the empty rooms, recalling the debates and conferences, the colleagues now gone, the voices stilled. “And I did get emotional,” she says. “So many of us have spent such long hours there."
With the new GAB under construction, legislative personnel are being shoehorned into the Pocahontas Building, which lacks a double-entendre nickname. Lobbyist Frank muses, “I don’t know — maybe we’ll call it The Pokey.”
