Southside, Birmingham, Alabama
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Southside encompasses the southern half of Birmingham's downtown area from the Railroad Reservation to the crest of Red Mountain and from Interstate 65 on the west to Elton B. Stephens Expressway (US 31, or "Red Mountain Expressway") on the east. It is considered to be the Midtown area of the city due its relationship to Downtown.
Southside is the contains many of the prominent points of interest of the Greater Birmingham area such as the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the adjacent medical center district. It also hosts Birmingham's liveliest entertainment district at Five Points South and a large number of notable homes and churches from the early twentieth century. Highland Avenue connects Southside to the Lakeview area, another center for nightlife.
It also is the most culturally diverse of all of the neighborhoods while the dense residential districts surrounding UAB and the medical center house a very diverse community of all classes, the Red Mountain neighborhoods are dominated by elegant mansions for affluent residents. Culturally, both groups enjoy the amenities of this urban community. For the purposes of Birmingham's citizen participation program, the Southside community is comprised of three neighborhood associations: Five Points South, Glen Iris, and Southside. Most residents would also include the Highland Park and Redmont Park neighborhoods in the broader definition of Southside.
Points of interest are few. Cycles of urban decay and gentrification have transformed the architecture of much of Five Points and the rest of Southside and Highland Park. Most notable would have been the Southside jail, where Martin Luther King was incarcerated ("Letter from a Birmingham Jail"), but this structure has been demolished. Generally, the diverse, bohemian nature of the area is a thing of the past, and young upper middle class whites are now dominant, especially in the area east of Twentieth Street.
[edit] External links
- History of Southside in 7 1/2 minutes or less at StevenFordBrown.com
