Daily Archives: February 22, 2016

ACC
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, […]

Alabama Center for Commerce

 in RSA  tagged center / commerce / rsa
STJ_Entrance
…is an independent nonsectarian private school located at 6010 Vaughn Road. It serves over 1,000 students, and this is its administrative building, situated at the head of a 25 acre campus. The school was founded in 1955 by Dr Stanley Frazer, pastor of St James Methodist Church, then located on […]

St. James School

 in Education  tagged james / saint
Museum of Fine Arts
…moved from its previous quarters on McDonough Street downtown into this structure in the Blount Park in 1988. The museum was founded in 1930 and is the oldest fine arts museum in Alabama. It draws 160,000 visitors a year. Although its most outstanding holdings are built around the 41-piece American […]

Museum of Fine Arts

 in Education  tagged arts / fine / museum
Gayle Planetarium
at Oak Park, built in 1966 under the administration of Earl James, and named for “Tacky” Gayle, the last of the Gunter Machine mayors. Tacky held the office for eight years, until Earl James beat him in 1958. My memories include discussions with WMP as to how to build the […]

Gayle Planetarium

 in Education  tagged gayle / planetarium
Alabama_Governor's_Mansion
This 1907 house, located on South Perry Street, has been Alabama’s Governor’s Mansion for almost 60 years now-despite numerous attempts to move it elsewhere to escape a decaying neighborhood. At ”Big Jim” Folsom’s urging, the State bought the place in 1950, paying $100,000, the most that had ever been paid […]

Governor’s Mansion

 in Government / Residential  tagged governor / mansion
Alfa ins 1
on Southern Boulevard, directly opposite Baptist Hospital South.  The company was founded in 1946 by the Alabama Farmer’s Federation, which was started itself in 1921 to serve the political, social, insurance and agri-business needs of its members. ALFA primarily sells casualty insurance, but is also involved in real estate, construction, […]

ALFA Insurance Headquarters

 in Commercial  tagged alfa / insurance
Post Office
on Winton Blount Boulevard, appropriate because Winton was US Postmaster General back when Nixon was president. This structure was dedicated in 1989, and it has this Byzantine flavor, strange for a Federal building.  Maybe it’s because Red Blount’s company built the King Saud University in Saudi Arabia (at $2-billion), the […]

Main Post Office

 in Government  tagged office / post / winton
Jones Law School
This view of the first block of Commerce Street conjures up so many stories. One of my favorites involves the Odyssey of the Jones Law School. The conversant amongst you will recall that the school was founded in 1928 by my very distant cousin, the omnipotent Judge Walter B Jones, […]

Jones Law School

 in Education  tagged jones / law
…on East Boulevard is the CBS affiliate for South Central Alabama, with remote studios in Selma, Troy and Greenville. The station was started in 1960 as an ABC outlet in Selma by my one-time neighbors, the Brennan Brothers of Big-BAM fame. But after two decades of repeated sale of its […]

WAKA TV Studio

 in Commercial  tagged cbs / tv / waka
MA Bridge
The Montgomery Academy was founded in 1959 by a small group of well-off Montgomery families who were determined to provide a quality substitute for the doomed public school system. For the first few years it held classes on Perry Street in the former “Sable Governor’s Mansion“. Just ahead of I-85 […]

Montgomery Academy

 in Education  tagged academy / bridge / MA / montgomery
Bell Building
…has towered over Montgomery Street for 100 years now. Newton Bell, whose dream it was, died during the construction, but his son, N J Bell Jr, saw it to completion, and his son N J III managed the property until the late 1960s. The building was actually U-shaped, having had […]

Bell Building

 in Commercial  tagged bell / historic registry
Baptist South Entrance
A huge complex, 450beds. Its initial unit was built circa 1963 by Winton Blount forces. By then his real contracting outfit had already grown too large to compete for Montgomery work, so Winton formed MidSouth Contractors, which won the job. That company turned out to be a real disaster and […]

Baptist Hospital South

 in Commercial  tagged baptist / hospital