Exploring Montgomery

The storytelling continues… a collection of stories and photos from Exploring Montgomery!

Monroe St Phase — As Dr. Bronner outlined it early in 1992, the Monroe Street segment would consist of seven structures. Two major office buildings, three large parking decks, a child care center and an outlet mall. Three architectural firms would be included in the action–PH&J would design the two office buildings and the […]

RSA Union – The Monroe Street Phase

RSA Clipping — For at least a half-century, the lower end of Monroe Street had been the downtown domain of the black community. Located there were the stores which catered to a black trade, their own movie theater, barber shops, etc. Monroe Street was not a good address. When word went out that […]

RSA Union – What’s In A Name

Union Handicapped Clipping — In 1990 no elected official in state government gave so much as lip service to the application of State-adopted rules to accommodate the handicapped, at least not to the buildings in the Capitol Complex. Not even when the Federal American Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in July of 1990. That […]

RSA Union – The Wheelchair Problem

Rice Semple House — To assuage the Acting State Finance Director, Jimmy Rowell, Bronner agreed to build a stand-alone multistory parking deck just behind the Lurleen Wallace State Office Building and near the State Capitol. In turn the Finance Director agreed that the State would vacate its gravel parking lots on the block which […]

RSA Union – The Tar Baby

Park and Tower — January 6, 2000, turned out to be a warm sunny day. Almost 300 people attended the celebration. The descendant families of five of the six honorees were present and basked in the glory being heaped on their ancestor. All three television stations had crews there and favorably reported on the […]

RSA Pavilion – Dedication Day

Park Dedication Clipping — Our project suffered one delay after another. One year turned into two, and two into three. During that period the RSA’s Deputy Director, Bill Walsh, died and Dr. Bronner was suddenly beset with remorse over the way he had treated him. He directed that we name the park for him, […]

RSA Pavilion – Greta Spills The Beans

Wall of History Takes Shape — The Bid The Park Project was bid on January 13, 1998. Upchurch Construction was low. Bear Brothers was second. Bear claimed the Upchurch bid was unethical and therefore illegal. A month-long fracas commenced. As background, you need to understand that the “wet trades” (i.e., masonry, hard tile, concrete finishing, plaster, […]

RSA Pavilion – Brouhaha Over The Bids

maintenance — For a time it appeared that no suitable use could be found for the east end of the “C”, where the Rice-Semple House had sat on temporary supports for so many months. Then Dr. Bronner announced that this remnant parcel would be utilized for a maintenance building which would serve […]

RSA Pavilion – The Maintenance Building

Mayor Bright — Six weeks before the dedication Montgomery elected itself a new mayor. In a startling upset, unassuming and inept attorney Bobby Bright bested incumbent Emory Folmar in a spirited run-off. My personal ogre was gone. Our city was heading down a new path, and all the RSA’s and my relationships with […]

RSA Pavilion – A New Mayor

Larry Godwin — Robert Lawrence “Larry” Godwin, the 60-year-old sculptor from Brundidge, Alabama, who designed and executed the bronze panels at the Pavilion Park, was an eccentric little man, as talented as he was strange. Larry Godwin’s contribution to our project was an essential part, and he carried it out with great zeal […]

RSA Pavilion – Anxiety Over The Sculptor

Toxic Cleanup Clipping — Evil Dirt Once Again Just when we had almost completed out drawings for the park, the specter of the toxic plume arose again. You must remember that this abomination from below had previously cropped up under the Tower’s chiller plant, and the chiller building occupied the west end of this […]

RSA Pavilion – Dirt Problems

Brown Paper Plantation Owner — As noted earlier, during the conceptual process, I constantly struggled with Larry over the political correctness of the history panels that he was creating. It seems strange for someone born and raised in the East Alabama Black Belt, but apparently Larry had this compulsion to ennoble the Indians, to aggrandize […]

RSA Pavilion – Larry’s Prejudice

Mary Ann Neeley — Now let’s forget all that ugly stuff and get back to park planning and research. Establishing the seven historic eras was not all that difficult, nor was thinking up the important events that might be depicted for each era. I started with the profound reference volume, “Know Alabama”, and quickly […]

RSA Pavilion – Seven Eras

Seven Flags — This was a fairly routine aspect of our history concept for the park. I solicited help from Ann Tidmore, Montgomery’s flag lady extraordinaire for the past 35 years, to assist with the research. In no time we came up with an “official” list of flags which had flown over our […]

RSA Pavilion – Seven Flags

Tablet Design and Brainstorm — Dr. Bronner now acts like he thought up the park for the “six unsung heroes”, but that is not quite the truth. The six-honoree concept came very late in the process and, as you already know, only after a number of other approaches were considered and discarded. After much struggle […]

RSA Pavilion – Six Honorees

Joel Dickerson — Now let’s back up a moment. A week or two after the final honoree concept was agreed on, at a time when I had given the actual selections only minimal thought, the park was announced to the press by the Retirement Systems. The press, including the Advertiser in particular, jumped […]

RSA Pavilion – The History Buffs Attack

Don Juan Mast — While we were still agonizing over a suitable theme for our pavilion structure, Dr. Bronner mentioned our struggle to his history-buff buddy, retired General Will Hill Tankersley. Will Hill declared that the park should feature the 75-foot-tall main mast of the Spanish man-of-war, Don Juan de Austria, salvaged from that […]

RSA Pavilion – Will Hill and the Ship’s Mast

Brown Paper Blowups — The process by which our seven era-tablets were to be conceived and produced was a fairly complex one. I was to give Larry, the artist and sculptor, a general description of each era together with a list of possible subjects which might be included. Larry was to supply additional historical […]

RSA Pavilion – The Panel Process

Pavilion Concept Drawing — For weeks after our maintenance building project was canceled, we all speculated about the fate of the east end of the C-shaped parcel. Some of us suggested to Bronner that it be utilized as additional parking space to support the Tower, but he would have none of that. He wanted […]

RSA Pavilion – The Concept

RSA Plaza Sreet Lights — Midway through the Plaza construction, Dr. Bronner realized his new buildings would not be set off properly unless the surrounding ugly overhead wires and creosote wood utility poles were removed. New sidewalks, street curbs, and asphalt overlay were already in the works along all facing streets, but these wires and […]

RSA Plaza – Traffic Signals and Street Lights

RSA Plaza Block Demolition Clipping — It seemed that each of the separate phases of design and construction brought its own bit of intrigue. 2WR’s demolition package, mentioned above, was to start around January 1, 1989, but two days before the preceding Christmas, the Alabama Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) secured a restraining order against David Bronner […]

RSA Plaza – The Trial Lawyers

RSA Plaza Interior — The clash with Governor Hunt delayed the tenant process until we almost lost the the fantastic unit prices included in the contract with which to complete the office spaces. The contractor’s bid had included very favorable terms under which the tenant fitout work could be done, but there was a […]

RSA Plaza – The Tenants

RSA Plaza Night — The Retirement Systems of Alabama’s (RSA) rather timid first step toward their $200 million office building/urban renewal venture into downtown Montgomery began early in 1988 when Dr. Bronner called us in to say that he had acquired two small residential size lots facing Adams Street and located immediately behind his […]

RSA Plaza – The OB Doctors

Plaza Fiber Repaired — Most construction jobs cause some sort of utility disruption, but the Plaza work reached a high mark. The Plaza’s utility disaster happened during the excavation/pile foundation phase, when Upchurch was contractor. Upchurch had hired as clearing and earthwork subcontractor one Sonny Wadsworth, who is a proverbial loose cannon. Sonny liked […]

RSA Plaza – The Fiber Optic Cable

Drop Off Curb — As might be expected, the RSA Plaza and the ACC grandeur made the original RSA office building appear rather drab by comparison. As a result, Dr. Bronner had us upgrading the original building even before the last hammer fell at the Plaza. We told Dr. Bronner that a significant problem […]

RSA Plaza – The Drop-Off Curb

Tavern on the Green — As it turned out, the RSA Plaza building was six stories plus a basement, and enclosed some l50,000 square feet of floor area. Bronner decreed a fast food restaurant on the main floor and a suave “greenhouse glass” banquet type facility on the penthouse level. The latter was to be […]

RSA Plaza – The Concept

Plaza Turf War — Early in l989 word had gotten out that the RSA was about to construct some 450,000 square feet of office space in the capitol complex. That space, added to the 700,000 square feet in the just completed “Missing Persons” Building, would impact the Aronov and Lowder real estate empires, which […]

RSA Plaza – The Aronov Attack