National Electric Company Building

The National Electric Company Building turns a narrow, two-story Art Deco front of smooth cream cast stone to Olive Street, set on a base of polished black granite. Three second-floor sash windows carry incised chevron-and-diamond lintels, and a zigzag frieze runs the length of the parapet. At street level a wide multi-pane display window in a stepped surround is flanked by two recessed entrances, each capped by a low-relief sunburst-and-rosette spandrel and a wrought-iron transom grille. Raised metal letters read "National Electric Company / Contracting Electrical Engineers." Behind the ornamental front, a long buff-brick warehouse wing with glass-block openings runs back to a timber freight bay on the alley.

The two-story building is divided behind twin entrances between the addresses 2011 and 2013 Olive Street. In the early 1940s the E.O. Dorsch Electric Company occupied 2011 Olive, while 2013 held the offices of R.L. Rogers Jr., A.R. Baxter, and Henry Hinricks Jr.; a "Packaging Equipment" sign then spanned the central display window. The National Electric Company, an electrical contracting firm styled "Contracting Electrical Engineers," later took 2011 Olive and added the metal lettering that survives across the front. Its successor, National Electrical Contracting Co. Inc., kept the address — the firm's gold-lettered name still marks the east entrance — before relocating to Pierce Avenue.