65 E Market St

From the National Register nomination

Second Empire two-story (with attic story) building of painted brick on the front and unpainted red brick on the east side and rear (south side). The mansard roof has shingle-pattern pressed metal roofing, multiple brick flues, segmental-hooded windows, and a simple modillion cornice. The second story has boldly projecting piers with cruciform recesses (painted green to contrast with the typical white), decorative corbeling, and 1/1 windows. The first story has a 1950s façade of two-tone green Carrara glass with aluminum door and window frames and aprons, plate glass and jalousie windows, and a recessed entry with a two-tone green tile pavement. A large ca. 1960 metal and plastic sign projects from the façade and reads "Georges Soda Sandwich Shoppe." To the rear are a stepped parapet, a limestone foundation with a freight entry, 1/1 windows, and a steel fire escape. The Sanborn map description of a building on this site switched from two stories to three in the early 1900s. In the 1910s and early 1920s the Elks occupied the second and third stories as club rooms. The height change and the Elks association may identify this as the B.P.O.E. Lodge Building erected ca. 1908 by local contractors Heatwole & Hedrick. The Harrisonburg Loan & Thrift added the present first-story façade in the late 1950s. Virginia Rontopoulous operated a restaurant here beginning in 1960, adding walk-up windows to give patrons access to her soda fountain. (Wells and Dalton, Virginia Architects, 192)