Newspaper Page Text
I —Griffin Daily News Thursday, August 31,1972
Page 14
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CHANGING SCENE—This view of the statue overlooking the central business district of Birmingham, Ala., shows how the city is changing. The population of is 750,000.
City on the move
Birmingham face changing fast
By EDWARD NEILAN
Copley News Service
BIRMINCHAM, Ala. — The
sport of rugby is the second
love of Tom Read, 20.
His first love is Birmingham
and, like a lot of other citizens
you meet here, Read exudes
enthusiasm about “that new
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skyscraper over there,” “our
excellent medical center,” and
the fact that “black and white
people are talking to each other
more than ever.”
Read is a college student, a
church deacon, a good-looking
bachelor and owner of a bulg
ing little black book of tele
phone numbers of Alabama
belles. He has a good future be
fore him in the family’s steel
products business.
His enthusiasm for his home
town is not the gushy Chamber
of Commerce variety nor does
it attempt to hide Birming
ham’s warts. “We’ve got prob
lems,” says Read. “But there’s
no place to go but up and that’s
where we’re headed.”
Erom 40-ish banker John W.
Woods, who doubles as pres
ident of the Metropolitan De
velopment Board, you’d expect
more of a hard sell.
But his story of why he left a
prestigious banking post on
New York's “big apple” to
come to Birmingham is con
vincing: "I saw some opportu
nities here to be part of growth
and development. This is where
1 want to be.”
Don A. Newton, executive
vice president of the Develop-
ment Board and charged with
attracting plants and busi
nesses to the city, comes on
stronger: “We’re starting to
boom here.”
But he has the basic essential
of any good salesman: a good
product.
Birmingham is on the move.
Whether the surge is reaction
due to a population's wounded
pride over past images of
racism or to a desire to “catch
up with Atlanta,” or to a vague
feeling that “Birmingham’s
time has come,” the fact is that
things are happening.
Unlike the cotton kingdoms
of the Old South, Birmingham
is relatively new. As it cele
brates its Centenial year cur
rently, long-time residents note
that the city’s entire history
can be recounted within the
span of three generations. Only
seven generations have passed
since the valley in which the
city now stands was an Indian
hunting ground.
The area’s population has
grown from a handful in 1870 to
750,000 today. In the 1860 s the
industrial value of Red Moun
tain’s ores was realized, the
railroads came and in late 1871
Birmingham was born.
Employment is at an all-time
high. Bank clearings have
tripled since 1963. New build
ings, industrial parks, distribu
tion centers and improved
housing facilities are changing
the face and skyline of Birm
ingham.
“Our banking institutions —
there are 10 banks in Birming
ham with 78 branches — make
the city Alabama’s financial
center. They fuel our economic
growth and explain why our
municipal bonds have top rat
ing on Wall Street,” says New
ton, offering in the next breath
a slide presentation of factory
sites available.
The University of Alabama in
Birmingham (UAB) is quadru
pling its size making it Bir
mingham's largest single em
ployer generating a $220 mil
lion economic impact through
out the area every year.
With size comes quality.
Famed heart surgeon Dr. John
W. Kirklin heads a staff of spe
cialists that has won interna-,
tional renown.
UAB’s expansion has helped
attract other new research fa
cilities and medical suppliers.
The sprawling “university city
Revival
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7:30 Nightly through Sept. 1
Rastus Salter, Evangelist.
within a city” is stimulating
construction of new apart
ments, restaurants, shopping
centers, motels and hotels.
“Downtown may be sagging
a bit,” said athlete Read,
squeezing into his sports car to
head for rugby practice, “but
it’s not dying like some center
city areas around the country.
Even with all the suburban
shopping centers, the down
town still is the biggest retail
earner.”
A new project, Birmingham
Green, is being aided by youth
groups and other civic organi
zations and will construct a
median of shrubs and trees
along the main downtown
street.
A new S4O million Civic Cen
ter, partially completed,
groups an exhibit hall,
coliseum, theater and concert
hall on ground where the first
railroad entered the city.
Construction figures provide
a telling barometer of the city’s
expansion. In 1971, capital con
struction hit a record $241.8
million. Construction of new
dwellings reached a peak $120.4
million.
The new construction is high
ly visible. It includes two 30-
story office buildings.
Birmingham's heavy indus
try, which makes the area Ala
bama's industrial heartland, is
allocating well over SIOO mil
lion for new pollution abate
ment equipment over the next
four years.
Even night life is on the up
swing. The sidewalks are no
longer rolled up at sunset and a
coordinated development of
pubs and cases along Morris
Street promises someday to
challenge the swinging atmo
sphere of Atlanta’s Under
ground.
Images of Birmingham as a
city of belching steel mill
smokestacks and racial prob
lems often obscure the fact that
medical facilities here — espe
cially in the areas of heart sur
gery, kidney transplants and
diabetes treatment — are
among the best in the nation.
Dr. Joseph Volker, president
of the University of Alabama at
Birmingham — which until re
cently included only medicine
— says luck and “outstanding
minds” have combined to give
the school its deserved reputa
tion near the top.
Vollr is so candid he once
said ithout flinching, “The
educaonal system in this state
stinks’
Bulhe has beaten the sys
tem. graduates of his institu
tion i medicine and dentistry
rankegularly in the top 10 per
centn academic competition
witnuch competitors as Har
vanYale, Columbia and Uni
veriy of California.
Ahough Volker’s empire is
usully called The Medical
Cerer, it actually is a far
broder complex. It embraces:
iDepartments of heart sur
ges and research of interna-
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tional reputation.
2. A dental school which
Volker says, “On any given day
may be the best in the world.”
3. The only known example of
a medical school giving birth to
a total university, whose Col
lege of General Studies is now
under construction on 75 acres
downtown.
4. A faculty whose quest for
new knowledge will generate
sl9 million in research grants
this year.
5. A building program which
has exceeded S7O million in the
last decade, a statistic which
Volker calls “reflective of our
people and our work.”
“We’ve been so lucky that it’s
almost impossible to con
ceive,” Volker admits. It all
started back when Gov.
Chauncey Sparks ignored ad
visers and located the medical
and dental schools in Birming
ham rather than at Tuscaloosa,
where the rest of the University
of Alabama is located.
With $450,000 borrowed from
the Alabama football team, the
homeless schools bought a
block of apartments now worth
about $2 million. Then, 20 Bos
ton-educated instructors mi
grated to join southerners in
forming the nucleus of the
faculty.
The migration of medical
brainpower to Birmingham has
never stopped.
Among the most famous is
Dr. John W. Kirklin, whose
work as a heart surgeon ranks
at the very top in the world.
Federal funds helped in the
dramatic construction over the
last 10 years, but more building
is under way and planned.
A new hospital complex,
promising to be one of the na
tion’s finest, will be built at The
Medical Center over the next
several years.
The 1,500-bed University
Hospital No. 2 will consist of a
“core” facility surrounded by
specialty towers for diabetes,
cancer and heart diseases.
Citizens of Alabama contrib
uted over $5 million toward
construction of the Lurleen B.
IMPERIAL
11 1 E Solomon Street
Telephone 227 12 11
Now Playing
"THE CLOCK WORK
ORANGE”
Rated (X)
No one under 18 admitted.
Wallace Memorial Hospital
and Tumor Institute in the UH
-2 complex, and gave over $1.5
million for the diabetes tower.
The nation’s first “on line”
Medical Information Service
via Telephone, or MIST, pro
gram was conceived and im
plemented at the center. This
service enables physicians
anywhere in Alabama to con
tact specialists at the center at
any time.
Major research efforts are
under way throughout the cen
ter. Two of the most prestigious
and extensive programs are
conducted by the Institute of
Dental Research — one of only
five in the nation — and the
Myocardial Infarction Re
search Unit.
The center is also in the fore
front of computer application
in both educating health care
professionals and in areas like
monitoring of intensive care
patients.
Dr. Josiah Macy Jr., director
of the UAB's Division of Bio
physical Sciences says the
knowledge of the center’s best
specialists, programmed on
computers, can relieve nurses
from handling some of the
more routine jobs — and do the
jobs more precisely than hu
mans.
TIRE TALK
Economists estimate that
$1.7 billion will be spent to re
place tires on 21 million non
military trucks and approxi
mately $lO5 million for farm
tires.
I IMPERIAL I
I fl
■ T< i. ; i
Today, Fri.,Sat.
Double Feature
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COLUMBUS”
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