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November 2009

THE BIG APPEAL OF SMALL ATTRACTIONS. Some of Birmingham's smaller attractions appeal to niche interests.

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Dilcy Windham Hilley
VP Marketing & Communications
205-458-8000 or dhilley@birminghamal.org

Birmingham, AL---The city’s major attractions such as the Birmingham Museum of Art are essential to a tourist’s schedule. But Birmingham also has a number of don’t-miss places for visitors with special interests.

Now Playing
The Alabama Theatre is not to be missed by anyone with an interest in architecture. It is one of the grand architectural accomplishments saved from the wrecking-ball fate so many others of that era suffered.

Built in 1927, the Alabama was designed by a Chicago firm that specialized in the extravagant movie palaces of the 1920s. The new motion picture house opened on Christmas Day. Silent movies still were the fare of the day, and the films were dramatized through music on the “Mighty Wurlitzer.” The massive pipe organ boasted a sound capacity of a 70-piece orchestra. That same wonderful Wurlitzer still magically rises from underground to accompany classic films or for special performances.

Exploring the theatre is entertainment in itself. The building is designed like a Spanish palace with a hodgepodge of motifs from many periods. Heavy Moorish details with spiraling terra cotta columns greet visitors. Marble columns, right gold leaf ornamentation and ornate chandeliers decorate the grand lobby. Inside the 3,000-seat auditorium, rich stained glass arches and complex, gilded, plaster ornament ice the walls. The interior is crowned with an elliptical dome of recessed panels. And by all means, make a special trip to the lavish lounges in the theatre.

Spend Some Time in The Garage
Visitors scouting out unusual nightlife---or good sandwiches---will likely be amazed to stumble across The Garage Café.

We’re not sure how GQ magazine found the place---most locals can’t even find it---but they did. Some time ago they named The Garage Café among the top 10 bars in the world worth flying for. That’s right…in the world. What started out in the 1920s as a storage area for chauffeur-driven cars, fell into shambles after WWII. In the 1970s after some repair, a local businessman opened an antiques showroom that overflowed into a courtyard. He later added a small café/bar for thirsty guests.

Since then, the place has become something of an underground hangout for the hip and interesting. Live music of many varieties often is underway there. GQ reviewer John T. Edge wrote: “The courtyard---a shamble of weed-choked baptismal fonts, headless marble nymphs and roll-top Nehi iceboxes enrobed in wisteria---calls to mind an Antiques Roadshow prop room overseen by a drunk with impeccable taste in detritus.”

‘Tis Poetry to the Soul
English majors (God bless ‘em) and other travelers interested in literature will be taken by the Samuel Ullman Museum. For years Samuel Ullman (1840-1924) and his poem “Youth” have been known and admired by the Japanese, but the man and his work are largely unknown in the U.S., even in Birmingham where the German Jew spent the last 40 years of his life in service to the community. He viewed “Youth” as a directive for the way one should live life.

Pilgrimages to Birmingham are common among Japanese visitors seeking out the Samuel Ullman Museum, created to advance Ullman’s vision by examining his civic, education and religious ideas and endeavors. Tours are by appointment.

YOUTH
Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

For more information on the big appeal of small attractions in Birmingham, visit www.birmingham.travel.

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