The Snow Building overlooking Five Points at 331 W. Main St. is one of Durham's best examples of art-deco architecture. Stone pilasters separating narrow window bays give the facade an emphatic verticality soaring to the jagged roofline and east-side tower.

Decorative metal grating that flanks the entrance includes a stylized phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from its own funeral pyre. It symbolizes Durham, which rebuilt itself over and again after devastating downtown fires in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The building itself was a statement of rising above catastrophe, completed as it was in 1933 at the depth of the Great Depression.

Besides its marble lobby with terrazzo floor, the Snow Building has the distinction of housing Durham's last operator-operated elevator.