At the intersection of South Court and our derelict Southern Boulevard. Fifty years ago there was no Interstate route thru Montgomery, and this was the highway travel path. Montgomery’s center of commercial and construction activity was along this strip, and the “88” was the keenest structure in the area. It was a near perfect, windowless cube, set off by a simple arch over the entrance. The building seems to have been the 1960 construction headquarters for Folmar & Flinn, developers of the enormous Cloverland low-cost housing district that sprang up right after WW II. The development literally reshaped Montgomery. But by 1965, Commercial Contractors (Folmar & Flinn’s subsidiary) was gone, and the box was renamed the 88-Building . . . which was so cool that it quickly became the home of five separate small architectural firms, along with at least five separate small building contractors. Today it is the Good News Ministries, but back then, if you were starting out, this was the small-office place to be.

-Charles Humphries