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In my opinion we are getting overrun from the south instead of the north
So true! And it's not nearly as bad in B'ham as in Decatur, Albertville etc. where the chicken processing plants are located.
Birmingham was awful when I was growing up...the steel mills producing thick yellow smog and smell.
But it's grown into a pretty nice town. Good shopping, a growing arts scene. It has some WONDERFUL historic buildings downtown that are wasting away. Yes, some have been salvaged but things seem to be at a standstill now.
But I would not mind at ALL living there, if we didn't have deep roots in Decatur.
So true! And it's not nearly as bad in B'ham as in Decatur, Albertville etc. where the chicken processing plants are located.
Birmingham was awful when I was growing up...the steel mills producing thick yellow smog and smell.
But it's grown into a pretty nice town. Good shopping, a growing arts scene. It has some WONDERFUL historic buildings downtown that are wasting away. Yes, some have been salvaged but things seem to be at a standstill now.
But I would not mind at ALL living there, if we didn't have deep roots in Decatur.
I think that's a snapshot from about 3 years ago. I drove downtown this weekend, and was amazed at the transformation going on. My guess is that, in about 5-10 years, downtown is going to be a great area.
If it weren't for the stereotype that many people that live elsewhere have of Alabama, it would probably be getting overrun like many places in the Carolinas with new residents from MI, NY, NJ, PA et al.[/QUOTE--Recycled]
Good point here. Maybe Alabamians should keep promoting the negative stereotype, and keep their state from being overrun.
I live in NC now, but was originally from the B'ham, Jemison area. You are right about NC becoming a haven for all the yanks and others. I loved it in AL and always will. That was when you could walk the streets at night and not worry. You could climb up in the Vulcan and not be charged and there was 14 girls for every boy. Believe it or not. Too bad its lights are all out now as the blacks have taken over everything as is in NC. Thanks to the federal government , we have a hard time expressing ourselves.
My guess is that, in about 5-10 years, downtown is going to be a great area
Guess again.
They've been saying "Birmingham is 5-10 years away" from greatness and vitality for as long as I've been alive. And a little longer than that, I'm told.
Mama killed a chicken/ thought it was a duck/ put it on the table with its feet stickin' up...
We're gonna build a city/ a city swank and pretty/ but we ain't goin' down there 'cause we might get shot in the face and yet it's still not a real city...
Same song, second verse. *YAWN*
Population has steadily declined every year since I was born.
What little tourism once existed has either been curtailed or snuffed out. Legion Field -- home to major football games including the annual Iron Bowl, Alabama-Tennessee every other year, and other good college football contests -- is now a dinosaur; the BJCC hosts a fraction of the exciting events it once did; City Stages is a shell of its former self; etc., etc.
There are no people in the street doing spontaneous things -- short of panhandling or dozing at a bus stop. There is no hustle, no bustle. No sidewalk artists. No street musicians. No parades. No random vendors set up illegally at a street corner peddling handmade wares. No jugglers or unicyclers. There are no ad hoc festivals and celebrations, "just because" -- unless it's an American Idol parade or civil rights demonstration. (And those don't qualify in my book as productive, exciting happenings).
There is no mass transportation to move people around. You cannot hail a cab without great difficulty in Birmingham. You are labeled a pariah if you attempt to walk too much, much less enjoy the act thereof.
The most salient point is that there continues to be no vibrant pulse. And this is not a subjective opinion. I defy any urbanite from any thriving urban city in the Western world to linger around downtown for a couple of days and exclaim, "Wow, this place is abuzz!"
Basically Birmingham is bereft of e~n~e~r~g~y and the type of life you are accustomed to seeing in a real city. Hence why you will never see me refer to Birmingham as a "city."
It all goes back to this: Birmingham is a sprawling amalgam of suburbia interspersed with the occasional, contrived attempt at bohemian, alt-friendly neighborhood. And a couple of lame attempts to congeal a "scene." Problem is this (and I'm no champion of hipsterdom per se): you can't have a "scene" without at least some hipsters; and, you can't have hipsters where you have no city. Simple logic.
Factor in Birminghamians' signature neurotic obsession of private property, the fear of all things heterogeneous and cultural (beyond provincial offerings, and even most indigenous non-sports-related offerings), an extremely low tolerance for even negligible crime statistics, and the legacy of a profound white flight which occurred before many citizens were born, but continues to set the tone for race relations, city-orientation, and proximity of neighborhoods as they relate to demographic composition. The result: a doughnut -- a hole of emptiness surrounded by cream-puff, saccharine suburbia.
Birminghamians are notoriously afraid of heterogeneity. They live in perpetual fear of the other side of the tracks. Literally scared to go into midtown areas, much less downtown -- the "inner city." I am FROM Birmingham (unlike many of the carpetbaggers and hinterlanders which dominate this board); I KNOW the mentality here. I know people by the boatloads who reside in Mountain Brook, Vestavia, and Homewood -- a mere couple of miles over the mountain from the downtown grid -- who can't name a single building or edifice down there that isn't either ubiquitous (e.g. the courthouse building) or sports-related (Legion Field, the Hall of Fame). And they don't think that's laughable.
These same 'Ham-o-phobes often refuse to utilize the interstates which pass through downtown, choosing instead alternate routes such as the long way via 459. I know hordes of people in Over the Mountain locales who are oblivious to historical landmarks such as the Arlington Home, Tuxedo Junction, even Highland Avenue.
I can recall going to a high school fraternity-sorority lead-out whereby we dined at the Summit Club which is at the top of the Harbert Building. You should have seen the knocked knees and all the quivering and whimpering.
Should we venture downtown? I dunno... it's pretty sketchy down there. We'll probably be ok in a limo -- we'll have the driver usher us inside... I hope he carries a gun... Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe we should have stayed at the Country Club instead... But we wanted to be different. Hope getting shot is worth it.
It wasn't just the girls; it was everybody involved -- the kids, the parents... all scared rabbits. If it weren't for the chauffeurs and the hired hands, I don't think we would have braved the outing. I wasn't afraid; I had been driving to the 4th Avenue Y and West End High School every day after school for an extracurricular activity.
Birminghamians: they're an anti-urban lot. Technically, they're country gentlemen and country bumpkins come-to-town; they never grew out of that mentality -- never embraced urbanism. And their contempt for all citified notions applies not only to Birmingham, but also to Atlanta (hence the bizarre animus towards that city which hasn't exactly competed with B'ham in anything other than an SEC Championship football event).
If you ever go to a real major city like San Francisco with a Birminghamian in tow (I have), you'll discover three things: (1) they absolutely refuse to utilize public transportation -- "t'would be slumming it"; (2) they're up for "doing the city" in one day and getting to the Wine Country (key word: "country") for the balance of the trip; (3) they have no savvy with regards to jaywalking, pedestrian crossings, holding an umbrella HIGH above their head so as not to poke someone's eye out, and placing a burrito order in under a minute:
Uhhhh.... Ok, I'll have the beef... No, the chick-en... No, the stayyyke... I need some kay-so... Oh, y'all don't do kay-so!... Ok I wanna a kay-sa-deee-ah... Y'all only do burr-i-tos!... Gomer says hay. Gomer says hay. Cackle cackle. Donkey bray.
And this isn't a class thing; for the people I am referring to in this particular case were common Joes.
Birminghamians are property freaks, as most Americans are. But inordinately so. They not only MUST own their own half acre of paradise, they must do so sooner than most (without paying their dues -- living in apartments for years in order to accrue the means in proper Dave Ramsey fashion). They thus mortgage themselves to the hilt and render themselves woefully "house poor." And if their house doesn't have a proper yard for kids "to run around in," then Little Johnny can't go out to play. And parks don't substitute for a lack of yard; they serve as social meeting spots for the stay-at-home moms. And a place to walk their dog to poop.
It's a reactionary and almost medieval proclivity, this property obsession. Every person buys or builds his dream house (read: castle or fort). This completes the carving out of a fiefdom. Heretofore, Mr. Birmingham Homeowner becomes oblivious to any life beyond the four walls of his fiefdom, the confines of his car, the floor of his office building, the aisles of his supermarket, the glass panes of his favorite boutique shoppes, and the pews of his church. Oh, and beyond the bowl of Alabama or Auburn's behemoth stadium. The suit of armor has been replaced with khaki pants and a golf shirt, by the way.
Next step: he dons the "W" bumper sticker as a pronouncement of his libertarianism (the political platform that best represents and enables property ownership and anti-urbanism). He then of course procures an internet moniker and embarks on the business of "interacting" with fellow citizens of his local metro area, defends his home turf with the vehemence of a Chamber of Commerce member -- often hurling invectives at any naysayers or B.S.-callers.
Anyone who is familiar with San Phleg the First's and my oeuvre is acquainted with our seething hatred for Birmingham. But the greater message of the Sans Phlegmatico which y'all should take to heart is that tortuous ennui to which one unavoidably succumbs when living in an utterly uninspiring and oppressive so-called "city" is to be avoided at all costs. It gets to you sooner or later, this place. And your power to fight back is exactly disproportional to level of your intellect, aesthetic sensibilities, cosmopolitanism, and urbaneness. So, tread with caution, prospective re-locators.
Call me irrational, but my animosity and bereavement since SP the First's sudden passing have recently a triggered a visceral response. I break out in a cold sweat every time I read where some uninformed naif is seeking to move here from Colorado or New York state. I am developing a phobia of short-sleeves polos, a spare tire from fried-everything, and Vulcan is haunting my dreams.
I am not feel well. But it's not just the 'Ham porking with my spirit. I think it's a confluence of living in Hell at the same point in time that a hard left, extremist, Farrakhan disciple appears poised to take the White House in nothing short of a Huxleyian coup d'etat. Where does that leave me? Deeply depressed -- doubly.
I could leave this country and solve all my problems in one fell swoop. Oh crap, I forgot AGAIN -- I AM moving to Paris! Dammit, I guess that's the sinister nature of a hell: even when there is an out door, you can't see it 'cause the lights are out and it's dark in here.
O happy day!
Note to self: Make a Post-it reminding me that I'm moving to Paris in a month. Viva la France! O sweet sanctuary!
Note to self Part Deux: Don't forget to cull mine and SP the First's screeds, polemics, and jeremiads about Birmingham, arrange chronologically, tack on an intro, and publish them. Oh, and seek legal counsel so our pants don't get sued off, the dead San and me.
Note to public: the Sans shall not be hiding behind noms de plume; their born names -- each of Mountain Brook aristocracy -- shall be inscribed in purple and gold for all to read. About them many shall scuttlebutt.
By the pen of Thomas Wolfe! O ennui!
Bury my body down by the riverside. Scatter my ashes over the Le Fleuve Seine. Or beneath the Tour Eiffel. Act as per my wishes, lest I rise up and scob the noggin of he who would entomb me at Elmwood as they did SP the First. It'd be an As I Lay Dying moment of Biblical proportions: San Phaulkner meets the Books of Sanuel.
And San put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the philistine Vulcan...
-- That's what you shall get, Mr. Vulcan, should you come at me in my dreams tonight! And if rock doesn't beat iron, I'm sure to fell you with poison-penned paper.
And San placeth his finger to the keyboard, and clickethed his mouse, and printeth, and smoteth the cast iron philistine...
Adieu.
[SP II takes a bow and prepares to retire to his chamber and make SP the First's wife.]
As I lay me down to bed/ my head is humming but half dead/ If I die before I wake/ I'll wake myself and eat more cake.
Last edited by san phlegmatico; 04-30-2008 at 05:53 AM..
hi, I was born in Bham. Im 52 now and have lived most of my life in Gainesville and Jacksonville Florida...except when I was in the Navy for 20. Both of my parents are from Bham and all their friends, my Dad is gone now, they both went to West End High School I believe, my grands are all from their on both sides of the family and everyone of my siblings and myself was born their except my sister, she was born in Tampa, my cousins, aunts, and uncles all still live there and in in Sylacauga/Tuscaloosa. I hate to hear so much has changed, we used to get on Mr. Dunn's truck when we were kids, hed come down my grandmothers street in this old bus, like a city bus, (somebodys bound to remember Mr. Dunn) he had the penny candy lipstick I loved to eat, lol.... and my gran she bought lotsa squash and other veggies from him, he toot his horn when he came to the top of the hill, and each time he stopped .... those memories will never fade, sometimes, I think of those cold mornings, those normal sidewalks they had that were like big blocks, with the cracks in them with orange clay, and man oh man, IS OLLIES BBQ STILL IN BUSINESS?????....they ruled, boy did they have some awesome food in the day, and Pot N Kettle, are they around?....my other gran, she used to walk us to the movies, and the A&P before the show, then back to her big apt that was in a 3 story Victorian neighborhood, she moved alot, my uncle was a policeman, hes a retired detective now... wow, well, I could go on forever... but I will always remember my mayonnaise sandwiches with ham, and the fan running in the window of my aunts home, and that little cliche theyd sing on the tv "Birmingham, Birmingham, thats my home town"....my aunt once lived in Alexander City too, before my uncle died, it was nice too, we went to a country club they were in called Willow Point, nice place....
thanks for letting me go back....nice day to all you wonderful Sweet Home Alabamians, I miss ya, always will.....
hey, just thought of a question, is Jack's Hamburgers still around?....they had a jingle that went like this "Jacks hamburgers for 15 cents theyre so good, good, good, youll go back back back, to Jack Jack Jacks, for more more more"....lol, those flimsy lil burgers were awesome in the day, are they still around?....I loved them, wish I had one now!!....
They've been saying "Birmingham is 5-10 years away" from greatness and vitality for as long as I've been alive. And a little longer than that, I'm told.
Mama killed a chicken/ thought it was a duck/ put it on the table with its feet stickin' up...
We're gonna build a city/ a city swank and pretty/ but we ain't goin' down there 'cause we might get shot in the face and yet it's still not a real city...
Same song, second verse. *YAWN*
Population has steadily declined every year since I was born.
What little tourism once existed has either been curtailed or snuffed out. Legion Field -- home to major football games including the annual Iron Bowl, Alabama-Tennessee every other year, and other good college football contests -- is now a dinosaur; the BJCC hosts a fraction of the exciting events it once did; City Stages is a shell of its former self; etc., etc.
There are no people in the street doing spontaneous things -- short of panhandling or dozing at a bus stop. There is no hustle, no bustle. No sidewalk artists. No street musicians. No parades. No random vendors set up illegally at a street corner peddling handmade wares. No jugglers or unicyclers. There are no ad hoc festivals and celebrations, "just because" -- unless it's an American Idol parade or civil rights demonstration. (And those don't qualify in my book as productive, exciting happenings).
There is no mass transportation to move people around. You cannot hail a cab without great difficulty in Birmingham. You are labeled a pariah if you attempt to walk too much, much less enjoy the act thereof.
The most salient point is that there continues to be no vibrant pulse. And this is not a subjective opinion. I defy any urbanite from any thriving urban city in the Western world to linger around downtown for a couple of days and exclaim, "Wow, this place is abuzz!"
Basically Birmingham is bereft of e~n~e~r~g~y and the type of life you are accustomed to seeing in a real city. Hence why you will never see me refer to Birmingham as a "city."
It all goes back to this: Birmingham is a sprawling amalgam of suburbia interspersed with the occasional, contrived attempt at bohemian, alt-friendly neighborhood. And a couple of lame attempts to congeal a "scene." Problem is this (and I'm no champion of hipsterdom per se): you can't have a "scene" without at least some hipsters; and, you can't have hipsters where you have no city. Simple logic.
Factor in Birminghamians' signature neurotic obsession of private property, the fear of all things heterogeneous and cultural (beyond provincial offerings, and even most indigenous non-sports-related offerings), an extremely low tolerance for even negligible crime statistics, and the legacy of a profound white flight which occurred before many citizens were born, but continues to set the tone for race relations, city-orientation, and proximity of neighborhoods as they relate to demographic composition. The result: a doughnut -- a hole of emptiness surrounded by cream-puff, saccharine suburbia.
Birminghamians are notoriously afraid of heterogeneity. They live in perpetual fear of the other side of the tracks. Literally scared to go into midtown areas, much less downtown -- the "inner city." I am FROM Birmingham (unlike many of the carpetbaggers and hinterlanders which dominate this board); I KNOW the mentality here. I know people by the boatloads who reside in Mountain Brook, Vestavia, and Homewood -- a mere couple of miles over the mountain from the downtown grid -- who can't name a single building or edifice down there that isn't either ubiquitous (e.g. the courthouse building) or sports-related (Legion Field, the Hall of Fame). And they don't think that's laughable.
These same 'Ham-o-phobes often refuse to utilize the interstates which pass through downtown, choosing instead alternate routes such as the long way via 459. I know hordes of people in Over the Mountain locales who are oblivious to historical landmarks such as the Arlington Home, Tuxedo Junction, even Highland Avenue.
I can recall going to a high school fraternity-sorority lead-out whereby we dined at the Summit Club which is at the top of the Harbert Building. You should have seen the knocked knees and all the quivering and whimpering.
Should we venture downtown? I dunno... it's pretty sketchy down there. We'll probably be ok in a limo -- we'll have the driver usher us inside... I hope he carries a gun... Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe we should have stayed at the Country Club instead... But we wanted to be different. Hope getting shot is worth it.
It wasn't just the girls; it was everybody involved -- the kids, the parents... all scared rabbits. If it weren't for the chauffeurs and the hired hands, I don't think we would have braved the outing. I wasn't afraid; I had been driving to the 4th Avenue Y and West End High School every day after school for an extracurricular activity.
Birminghamians: they're an anti-urban lot. Technically, they're country gentlemen and country bumpkins come-to-town; they never grew out of that mentality -- never embraced urbanism. And their contempt for all citified notions applies not only to Birmingham, but also to Atlanta (hence the bizarre animus towards that city which hasn't exactly competed with B'ham in anything other than an SEC Championship football event).
If you ever go to a real major city like San Francisco with a Birminghamian in tow (I have), you'll discover three things: (1) they absolutely refuse to utilize public transportation -- "t'would be slumming it"; (2) they're up for "doing the city" in one day and getting to the Wine Country (key word: "country") for the balance of the trip; (3) they have no savvy with regards to jaywalking, pedestrian crossings, holding an umbrella HIGH above their head so as not to poke someone's eye out, and placing a burrito order in under a minute:
Uhhhh.... Ok, I'll have the beef... No, the chick-en... No, the stayyyke... I need some kay-so... Oh, y'all don't do kay-so!... Ok I wanna a kay-sa-deee-ah... Y'all only do burr-i-tos!... Gomer says hay. Gomer says hay. Cackle cackle. Donkey bray.
And this isn't a class thing; for the people I am referring to in this particular case were common Joes.
Birminghamians are property freaks, as most Americans are. But inordinately so. They not only MUST own their own half acre of paradise, they must do so sooner than most (without paying their dues -- living in apartments for years in order to accrue the means in proper Dave Ramsey fashion). They thus mortgage themselves to the hilt and render themselves woefully "house poor." And if their house doesn't have a proper yard for kids "to run around in," then Little Johnny can't go out to play. And parks don't substitute for a lack of yard; they serve as social meeting spots for the stay-at-home moms. And a place to walk their dog to poop.
It's a reactionary and almost medieval proclivity, this property obsession. Every person buys or builds his dream house (read: castle or fort). This completes the carving out of a fiefdom. Heretofore, Mr. Birmingham Homeowner becomes oblivious to any life beyond the four walls of his fiefdom, the confines of his car, the floor of his office building, the aisles of his supermarket, the glass panes of his favorite boutique shoppes, and the pews of his church. Oh, and beyond the bowl of Alabama or Auburn's behemoth stadium. The suit of armor has been replaced with khaki pants and a golf shirt, by the way.
Next step: he dons the "W" bumper sticker as a pronouncement of his libertarianism (the political platform that best represents and enables property ownership and anti-urbanism). He then of course procures an internet moniker and embarks on the business of "interacting" with fellow citizens of his local metro area, defends his home turf with the vehemence of a Chamber of Commerce member -- often hurling invectives at any naysayers or B.S.-callers.
Anyone who is familiar with San Phleg the First's and my oeuvre is acquainted with our seething hatred for Birmingham. But the greater message of the Sans Phlegmatico which y'all should take to heart is that tortuous ennui to which one unavoidably succumbs when living in an utterly uninspiring and oppressive so-called "city" is to be avoided at all costs. It gets to you sooner or later, this place. And your power to fight back is exactly disproportional to level of your intellect, aesthetic sensibilities, cosmopolitanism, and urbaneness. So, tread with caution, prospective re-locators.
Call me irrational, but my animosity and bereavement since SP the First's sudden passing have recently a triggered a visceral response. I break out in a cold sweat every time I read where some uninformed naif is seeking to move here from Colorado or New York state. I am developing a phobia of short-sleeves polos, a spare tire from fried-everything, and Vulcan is haunting my dreams.
I am not feel well. But it's not just the 'Ham porking with my spirit. I think it's a confluence of living in Hell at the same point in time that a hard left, extremist, Farrakhan disciple appears poised to take the White House in nothing short of a Huxleyian coup d'etat. Where does that leave me? Deeply depressed -- doubly.
I could leave this country and solve all my problems in one fell swoop. Oh crap, I forgot AGAIN -- I AM moving to Paris! Dammit, I guess that's the sinister nature of a hell: even when there is an out door, you can't see it 'cause the lights are out and it's dark in here.
O happy day!
Note to self: Make a Post-it reminding me that I'm moving to Paris in a month. Viva la France! O sweet sanctuary!
Note to self Part Deux: Don't forget to cull mine and SP the First's screeds, polemics, and jeremiads about Birmingham, arrange chronologically, tack on an intro, and publish them. Oh, and seek legal counsel so our pants don't get sued off, the dead San and me.
Note to public: the Sans shall not be hiding behind noms de plume; their born names -- each of Mountain Brook aristocracy -- shall be inscribed in purple and gold for all to read. About them many shall scuttlebutt.
By the pen of Thomas Wolfe! O ennui!
Bury my body down by the riverside. Scatter my ashes over the Le Fleuve Seine. Or beneath the Tour Eiffel. Act as per my wishes, lest I rise up and scob the noggin of he who would entomb me at Elmwood as they did SP the First. It'd be an As I Lay Dying moment of Biblical proportions: San Phaulkner meets the Books of Sanuel.
And San put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the philistine Vulcan...
-- That's what you shall get, Mr. Vulcan, should you come at me in my dreams tonight! And if rock doesn't beat iron, I'm sure to fell you with poison-penned paper.
And San placeth his finger to the keyboard, and clickethed his mouse, and printeth, and smoteth the cast iron philistine...
Adieu.
[SP II takes a bow and prepares to retire to his chamber and make SP the First's wife.]
As I lay me down to bed/ my head is humming but half dead/ If I die before I wake/ I'll wake myself and eat more cake.
eat mo' cake?...thats what Marie Antoinette said, and she lost her head over there, she was Austrian tho, but Id still beware, over there....lol
my grandmother used to walk the roads of Elmwood collecting the new ribbons to make ribbon rugs, I remember us doing that when nobody was around. I still have two of those rugs in my kids rooms, theyre gorgeous. My grandmother Aileen is buried there, and I got a spot there too....thats a beautiful place, God bless it....
I live in NC now, but was originally from the B'ham, Jemison area. You are right about NC becoming a haven for all the yanks and others. I loved it in AL and always will. That was when you could walk the streets at night and not worry. You could climb up in the Vulcan and not be charged and there was 14 girls for every boy. Believe it or not. Too bad its lights are all out now as the blacks have taken over everything as is in NC. Thanks to the federal government , we have a hard time expressing ourselves.
Blacks have taken over everything as in NC? Whats that supposed to mean?
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