Heavy

Oh, the joys of a Wiki. Today I learn that we live a block west of the so-called Heaviest Corner on Earth, at which stands the gorgeous Empire Building, pictured here. (The relative scarcity of skyscrapers in the Birmingham city center is kind of cool, because the ones that are here really stand out; they have room to make an impact.)

The 1st Ave. N/20th St. intersection took the "Heaviest" nickname in the early 20th century when the four skycrapers on each of its corners rose between 1902 and 1912. The Woodward Building (the first completed, in 1902) is Chicago style, and was the first steel frame high-rise here.

Industrial boom put B'ham on the map in the late 19th and early 20th century as the biggest city in the state, and to some degree a place with less in common with the rest of (very agrarian) Alabama than the cities of the Northeast.

Thanks to its mineral blessings--the area was rich with deposits of iron, coal, and limestone--Birmingham was a steel town for a long time, and is sometimes referred to as the "Pittsburgh of the South" for that reason. U.S. Steel still operates the Fairfield Works 10 miles west of downtown. (And then there's the repurposed Sloss Furnaces, which we'll visit for the first time Sunday to see some deconstructed Shakespeare, so more TK, there.) A "New South" city, Birmingham didn't exist prior to the Civil War, which for obvious reasons made the South keen to develop industrially and build an extensive railroad network. Key to the city's founding was a plan for north-south and east-west train lines to intersect here. (No navigable river in sight, and the valley was in the heart of poor hill country, hemmed in on its north and south sides by small mountains.) Northern capital was also key.

And now, in this re-reconstructed New South? It's all about banking and medical research. And lifestyle magazines.

So much exploring to do. I spied a giant abandoned building from the interstate the other day, and I hope to prowl around it. (To me, it read "asylum," but I'm sure that's my own weird brand of romantic spin.)