Birmingham Terminal Station, completed in 1909, was the principal railway station for Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

 (USA) until the 1950s. It was demolished in 1969 and its loss still serves as a rallying image for local preservationists

Historic preservation

Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...

.

Beginnings

Six of the seven railroads serving Birmingham joined to create the "Birmingham Terminal Company" in the early 20th century. They funded a new $2 million terminal station covering two blocks of the city at the eastern end of 5th Avenue North downtown. The station largely took over the function of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad

Louisville and Nashville Railroad

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.Chartered by the state of Kentucky in 1850, the L&N, as it was generally known, grew into one of the great success stories of American business...

 station at Morris Avenue and 20th Street.

Architecture

The architect for the hulking Byzantine

Byzantine architecture

Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...

-inspired Beaux-Arts station was P. Thornton Marye of Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. The exotic design stirred controversy at first.

The exterior of the building was primarily dressed in light-brown brick. Two 130-foot (39.6 m) towers topped the north and south wings. The central waiting room covered 7,600 square feet (706 M²) and was covered by a central dome 64 feet (19.5 m) in diameter covered in intricate tilework and featuring a skylight of ornamental glass. The bottom 16 feet (4.9 m) of the walls in the main waiting room were finished in gray Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 marble.

Connecting to the main waiting room were the ticket office, a separate ladies' waiting room, a smoking room, a barber shop

Barber

A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....

, a news stand, a refreshment stand, and telephone and telegraph booths. Along the north and south concourses were the kitchen, lunch and dining rooms, another smoking room, restrooms, and the "colored" waiting room, a requirement of Birmingham's strict racial segregation

Racial segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

. The north wing housed two express freight companies while the south was used for baggage and mail transfer.

Outside of the station were ten tracks. A series of overlapping "umbrella" sheds covered the platforms and tracks. These sheds provided protection from the rain while still letting in sunlight and fresh air.

An underpass, locally called a "subway" tunneled below the center of the building, allowing streetcars to pass. In 1926 a large electric sign reading "Welcome to Birmingham, the Magic City", was erected outside the station at the west end of the underpass. The sign functioned as a gateway for visitors who arrived primarily by rail and 5th avenue became a "hotel row", lined with restaurants and entertainments.

During the Depression, the station fell into disrepair, but resurged in the late 1930s through World War II. In 1943 the station underwent a $500,000 renovation which included sandblasting, new paint, and new interior fixtures. During this period of rebirth, rail traffic peaked at 54 trains per day.

Decline

As automobile ownership increased and air travel gained popularity, rail travel suffered. By 1960 only 26 trains per day went through Terminal Station. At the beginning of 1969 it was down to seven trains. During the 1960s the station served as the site of numerous small episodes of the Civil Rights Movement

African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)

The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...

. Local Civil Rights leaders like Fred Shuttlesworth

Fred Shuttlesworth

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, born Freddie Lee Robinson, was a U.S. civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama...

 challenged the racially-segregated accommodations of the station and crowds of belligerent whites gathered, sometimes leading to violence.

In 1969 the U.S. Social Security Administration

Social Security Administration

The United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits...

 announced plans to build a consolidated service center in downtown Birmingham. A local developer quietly put together a plan for a $10 million redevelopment for the site of the deteriorating station. The redevelopment, which the developer pitched to the Southern Railway

Southern Railway (US)

The Southern Railway is a former United States railroad. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894...

, then sole-operator of the station, would include a smaller, more modern train terminal along with a new Social Security building, two smaller office buildings and a large hotel.

Permission to proceed with demolition was granted on June 30, 1969 by the Alabama Public Service Commission

Alabama Public Service Commission

The Alabama Public Service Commission, commonly called The PSC, was established by an act of The Alabama Legislature in 1915 to primarily replace the State Railroad Commission. The PSC's responsibility was expanded in 1920 to include regulating and setting rates that utility companies charge their...

. They set aside the arguments of a handful of preservationists in attendance saying that they could only consider "the necessity and convenience of the traveling public." In its run-down state, the Terminal Station was judged to no longer meet those needs. Within a few months, the building was demolished and the site cleared.

Ultimately the redevelopment plans were never built. The Social Security Administration built a new office building elsewhere in 1974. The site became part of the right-of-way for the Red Mountain Expressway, connecting U. S. Highway 31

U.S. Route 31

U.S. Route 31 is a long north–south highway connecting northern Michigan to southern Alabama, with its northern terminus at Interstate 75 near Mackinaw City, Michigan, and southern terminus at the combined U.S. Route 90 & U.S. Route 98 at Spanish Fort, Alabama...

 and U. S. Highway 280

U.S. Route 280

U.S. Route 280 is a spur of U.S. Highway 80. It currently runs for 392 miles from Blichton, Georgia at U.S. Highway 80 to Birmingham, Alabama at I-20/I-59. For much of its route, U.S. 280 travels through rural areas and smaller cities in southern Georgia and east central Alabama. Once the...

 with Interstate 20

Interstate 20

Interstate 20 is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States. I‑20 runs 1,535 miles from near Kent, Texas, at Interstate 10 to Florence, South Carolina, at Interstate 95...

 and Interstate 59

Interstate 59

Interstate 59 is an Interstate Highway in the southern United States. Its southern terminus is near Slidell, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, at an intersection with Interstate 10 and Interstate 12, its northern terminus is at Wildwood, Georgia, at an intersection with Interstate 24.The road's...

. By using the Terminal Station site, a public housing project which had been slated for demolition, was preserved. The only remnant of the demolished building to survive was a tunnel that now carries 5th Avenue North under the highway and railroad tracks.