on Adams Avenue, was constructed by RSA in 1989 in the same contract with the RSA Plaza. The ACC was conceived as an appropriate venue in which to assemble all the State’s industry seeking arms, and to provide for them all the tools necessary for their success. Besides ADO, ADECA, ACHE and Tourism, major universities with industry research departments were invited to install contingents. Alabama Power was represented. ACHE declined, but was replaced by Post-Secondary. It was a marvelous concept, a labor of love, but only partially successful. One of my big disappointments.

The Hall of Flags of the RSA’s Alabama Center For Commerce. Each flag represents a country that has a plant in Alabama, but it’s doubtful that anyone has bothered to add a flag since the building was built 20 years ago.

Left: The ACC and the ACC Parking Deck face each other across Adams Avenue. Unseen, but connecting the two, is a pedestrian tunnel. The City opposed the ACC project and punished the RSA by requiring the construction of a detour for Adams (2 cars per hour traffic) to facilitate building of the tunnel. Compare that to the lenient made for far worse infringes today.

Right: On the left in the picture you can see RSA’s Falling Waters Fountain behind the ACC Building. On the right, maybe 200-feet down the street, is Maya Lin’s civil rights memorial standing in front of Morris Dees’ former Southern Poverty Law Center offices. It was the design of the RSA fountain that so upset Maya Lin (designer of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington), who declared in 1990 that the RSA water noise would ruin the atmosphere of her civil rights monument on the adjacent property.

-Charles Humphries