Birmingham: Trivia!

[Florida]

The Birmingham Airport opened in 1931. At the time of the opening a Birmingham to Los Angeles flight took 19 hours.

[ironchapman]

I'm sure there will be plenty of trivia here. So many Alabama forumers know good tidbits about this city.

Didn't it used to havethe second most extensive streetcar route in the nation?

[tedo420]

The University of Alabama at Birmingham's University Hospital is the world's top kidney transplant center.

Gourmet ranked Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham among the top five restaurants in the country.

Alabama ranks #3 in the nation in most runners per capita

Birmingham's Ruffner Mountain is larger than New York City's Central Park

and a five minutes drive from downtown. It is the second largest urban nature preserve in the country.

Only New York City has more of the top 50 banks headquartered in the city.

[ironchapman]

Birmingham, Alabama is pronounced as "Birming-ham" while its namesake city in England is pronounced "Birming-hmm" (or something close to that).

[A2]

Birmingham was one of the only cities in the world that has ALL ingrediants to make steel It was called the Pittsburg of the south as it kept pace with steel production for the Industrial Revolution.

Vulcan is the largest cast Iron Sculpture in the world.

Birmingham became know as the magic city because they stated that the city grew overnight like magic during the big Steel boom that put a sleepy town on the map.

A2

[A2]

Only New York City has more of the top 50 banks headquartered in the city.

That is not exactly true. While before the Wachovia merger, Birmingham did have more Top 50 banks HQ'ed in thier city than any other outside of NYC.

Charlotte now has claimed that title.

A2

FYI, Charlotte has held the # 2 banking center title in the nation outside of NYC for over 14 years.

[tedo420]

Yes, but Charlotte Has a Few huge banks, where as birmingham Had/Has many large and medium sized. We have the ability to grow and form Lage banks in a few years, they just get bought by others. People underestimate the amount of money people in Birmingham have. After they get bought up they are twice as many new start up banks formed in Birmingham.

[Florida]

I think its awesome Birmingham has that many HQs, bank or not.

[Blazer85]

Birmingham did indeed have the 2nd most extensive streetcar system in the nation.

-1925 Birmingham Railway and Electric Company Streetcar system operated over 80 miles of track and carried 56 million revenue passengers

-1948 Ridership reached an all time peak at 93 million passengers

[Blazer85]

-UAB

[NCB]

The Birmingham Airport opened in 1931. At the time of the opening a Birmingham to Los Angeles flight took 19 hours.

19 hours

[Florida]

Birmingham did indeed have the 2nd most extensive streetcar system in the nation.

-1925 Birmingham Railway and Electric Company Streetcar system operated over 80 miles of track and carried 56 million revenue passengers

-1948 Ridership reached an all time peak at 93 million passengers

WOW! Thats amazing for those times.

[A2]

Yes, but Charlotte Has a Few huge banks, where as birmingham Had/Has many large and medium sized. We have the ability to grow and form Lage banks in a few years, they just get bought by others. People underestimate the amount of money people in Birmingham have. After they get bought up they are twice as many new start up banks formed in Birmingham.

This is not true. I am from Birmingham and have worked in Banking/Finaince in Charlotte for the last 6 years. In the end there will only be a handful of banks that handle all of the coutry's deposits. Maybe 5-10 (10 is probably a bit much). Start-ups are in fact started as a way to get a slice of the pie, but in the end they too will be gobbled up in a quest for the "big boys" to be the last standing. Right now, there are two banks that I know of that are looking at Compass and Amsouth (these banks will be snatched from B'ham unfortunately as well). Regions is the ONLY bank that has a chance of lasting for a bit longer, since it is slighty larger)

Here are the Banks that will definately be left:

Bank of America (largest Bank in the US, based on Deposits)----Carlotte

Citi ----------------------------------------------------------------------NYC

JP Morgan Chase-------------------------------------------------------NYC

Banks that are fighting to be in the top that will probably survive are as follow:

Wachovia---------------------Charlotte

Wells Fargo-------------------San Francisco

Washington Mututal----------Seattle

and MAYBE

US Bancorp-------------------Minneapolis

The last two are a S-t-r-e-t-c-h.

I understand that B'ham has money, but mostly from the Medical community. It is not from the Banks. And just so it is understood the Top 50 is a skewed poll in the banking community. After the top 3 banks, the deposits drop off quickly. After the 6th or 7th bank it is not even worth referring too, except for regional purposes only. The top 5 banks in the Nation have between a Trillion in despoits (ie BofA and CITI) to around a half a trillion (ie Wachovia and Wells)

The largest is BofA----which is HQ'ed in Charlotte.

The banks that you are referring to in B'ham have less than 60 Billion and that is being generous since I am referring to Regions.

Bank deposits:

Amsouth ---->$35 B

Compass --->$20B

Regions----->$58B

These are tiny compared to the Top 5 or even the Top 10 banks in the US. And tiny is an understatement. To give some perspective you would have to COMBIMNE ALL the deposits at Amsouth, Compass, AND Regions, THEN multiply that number by 10 just to get the total deposits of JUST BofA !

On the idea that CLT has a handful of banks that is incorrect as well. There are several more banks that have a VERY large presence in CLT outside of WB and BofA. The list is so large I would need some space to type them all.

Again this is not to make B'ham look bad, it is simply to counter the idea that B'ham is a Huge Banking mecca. I would never knock B'ham since it is my home. Birmingham has a strong regional banking presence as a city, but unfortunately that is slowly slated to be non-existant in the coming years.

On a side note one thing that is awsome about B'ham, that is unique compared to most cities in the South is its older architecture and grided street pattern. Many people that go to downtown are shocked to find out it is laid out very differenlty, and that it almost looks like a northern city. I love B'ham and only wish for it to prosper, but the idea of it being a major banking center is far fetched and false. It does have a lot of other things to hang its hat on though. For expample, Medical and now a great deal of car manufatoring plants. This put B'ham on the map and will continue to bring jobs into the metro.

A2

[DruidCity]

Here's an odd trivia bit I ran across today :

The guy who invented the word "psychedelic" retired in 1990 as a psychiatrist at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa and professor at the medical school in Birmingham:

http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?s...e=nested&tid=11

[NCB]

^Great trivia!

[trident]

Hi everybody! First of all excuse me for english. My english is really suks. I am russian and I hope to find some help here. Almoust 10 years ago I used to live in Bham and now I am trying to find some photos of this city. Can you say me where may I see Bham photos?

[A2]

Hi everybody! First of all excuse me for english. My english is really suks. I am russian and I hope to find some help here. Almoust 10 years ago I used to live in Bham and now I am trying to find some photos of this city. Can you say me where may I see Bham photos?

Welcome to Urban Planet trident !!!

Here is a nice shot of the Birmingham skyline. I do not live in Birmingham anymore, but was born and raised there. I am in Charlotte now, but I thought I would post one of favorite shots of the city from Red Mountain. It is more of a hill than a mountain, but it is high enough to get some really sweet shots of downtown.

Here ya go:

[Xmatt85]

Welcome to Urban Planet trident !!!

Here is a nice shot of the Birmingham skyline. I do not live in Birmingham anymore, but was born and raised there. I am in Charlotte now, but I thought I would post one of favorite shots of the city from Red Mountain. It is more of a hill than a mountain, but it is high enough to get some really sweet shots of downtown.

Here ya go:

This picture is fake. I do not know if you know a whole lot about downtown B'ham, but the AT&T Tower and the Alabama Power from this view should be on the west side of downtown. Also the golden dome that is the transportation facility is much further west than it should be in the picture. There are several other minor discreptancies.

[NCB]

Welcome to UP, trident!

Here is a link to a photo thread of Birmingham

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13651

[A2]

This picture is fake. I do not know if you know a whole lot about downtown B'ham, but the AT&T Tower and the Alabama Power from this view should be on the west side of downtown. Also the golden dome that is the transportation facility is much further west than it should be in the picture. There are several other minor discreptancies.

You are right I meant to post this one.

I know a ton about B'Ham since I have lived in the city for over 20 years and was born at Brookwood Hospital. Both my Father and Mother still live there. I went to Hewitt-Trussville and lived in Trussville and Mountain Brook for over 15 years. I am now in Charlotte, but I am in B'ham at least two to three time a year.

A2

[Dystopos]

This picture is fake. I do not know if you know a whole lot about downtown B'ham, but the AT&T Tower and the Alabama Power from this view should be on the west side of downtown. Also the golden dome that is the transportation facility is much further west than it should be in the picture. There are several other minor discreptancies.

That's insane! Where did you get his mixed up photo and who made it for what purpose?

Regarding the original post, there are nearly 1900 photos of Birmingham on Flickr:

www.flickr.com/groups/magic_city

[convulso]

at risk of having a thread closed, i decided to post this here (it's either here or the coffeehouse):

bham, as well as alabama, is highly ranked by some publication - that part doesn't really matter much to me - for having numerous wi-fi connections citywide (and statewide):

http://techbirmingham.wordpress.com/2007/0...op10-free-wifi/

the interesting thing is that bham has consistently been regarded as having good wi-fi access over the years, and indeed i've always thought this. it's a big quality-of-life thing for a certain demographic of people (me being among them), and it's one reason i always used to love hanging out at the highland coffee company back when i lived in bham (and that place was still open). i wish the joe muggs locations would offer open wi-fi, but they've apparently made the choice to go middle-class and suburban with their lack of access, and their closing of the five points store (which always seemed to have business).

i know there have been some rumblings of an effort to convince the city to pull a new orleans and make internet access a publicly available amenity, but thus far i've seen nothing more promising than a few random letters to the editor of the bham news. makes sense to me, as an investment in infrastructure in a city that wants to be recognized as a bio/tech mecca.

[Blazer85]

CNN Money projects the Birmingham housing market to grow by 3.6%... making it the 10th-fastest growing market in the US.

[Blazer85]

My former high school, a suburban Birmingham school, continues to earn praise nationally...

2005- Jefferson County International Baccalaureate (#1 in the US)

2006- Jefferson County International Baccalaureate (#2 in the US)

2007- Jefferson County International Baccalaureate (#4 in the US)

*rankings by Newsweek Magazine

[Blazer85]

Of all the stuff I know about Birmingham, I only recently learned this...

Mary Anderson, a Birmingham native, was the inventor of windshield wipers.