Tag Archives: City Action Partnership

Five Points South: Don’t let the ‘naysayers’ win

Graffiti on front door 20th Street-- heart of Five Points South
Graffiti on front door 20th Street– heart of Five Points South

I’ve published more than 400 pieces about our Birmingham region in the past seven years.

But I was completely blindsided by comments on the I believe in Birmingham Facebook page for the article, Five Points South landlords are self-destructive. 

Continue reading Five Points South: Don’t let the ‘naysayers’ win

Five Points South landlords are self-destructive

Graffiti on side of building in heart of Five Points South
Graffiti on side of building in heart of Five Points South

On my way to lunch to Surin at Five Points South I had to walk around an unconscious man sleeping across the sidewalk in front of Jim ‘N Nicks.

I looked up at the building across the street and saw a huge piece of graffiti scrawled near the top. (See photo) Continue reading Five Points South landlords are self-destructive

How we slashed crime by 70% in downtown Birmingham

Douglas Stewart,
Douglas Stewart

ComebackTown is published by David Sher to begin a discussion on a better Birmingham.

Today’s guest blogger is Douglas Stewart.  If you’d like to be a guest blogger, please click here.

The story you are about to hear is truly remarkable.

If an author had written it as a plot in a book, you wouldn’t have thought it possible.

For many years downtown Birmingham had the reputation of being unsafe.

Many people had given up on our downtown.  There were vacant buildings everywhere and businesses were rushing to the suburbs never to return. Continue reading How we slashed crime by 70% in downtown Birmingham

Graffiti covers up Birmingham

Teresa Thorne
Teresa Thorne Executive Director of City Action Partnership (CAP)

ComebackTown is published by David Sher to begin a discussion on a better Birmingham.

Today’s guest blogger is Teresa Thorne.  If you’d like to be a guest blogger, please click here.

2,675 pieces of graffiti were splattered all over downtown Birmingham last year–but you didn’t see any of them. That’s because our CAP officers removed them almost instantaneously.

Can you imagine what downtown Birmingham would look like if we hadn’t been removing graffiti from walls, signs, and power boxes for the past 19 years?

I’ve spent most of my adult life in Birmingham, and I feel we rarely take the time to celebrate our successes. Continue reading Graffiti covers up Birmingham

Insanity: Couples getting married in downtown underpass

Wedding 18th Street underpass downtown Birmingham
Jemia & Adrian (Photo by Timothy L. Jones

ComebackTown is published by David Sher to begin a discussion on a better Birmingham.

Today’s guest blogger is Atticus Rominger. If you’d like to be a guest blogger, please click here.

Birmingham has many fine wedding venues:  Couples and their guests can take in grand views at Vulcan Park or The Club, have a fancy affair at the Historic Tutwiler Hotel – or snap a bridal photo under a downtown underpass. That’s right – an underpass.

If I’d told you a year ago the brides would drag their white dresses through a railroad underpass Continue reading Insanity: Couples getting married in downtown underpass

Downtown Birmingham safe as Mt. Brook or Vestavia

 

Teresa Thorne Executive Director of City Action Partnership (CAP)

Comebacktown published by David Sher & Phyllis Neill to begin a discussion on creating a better government for our region.

Today’s guest blogger is Teresa Thorne.

Downtown Birmingham is as safe as the over-the-mountain neighbors Mountain Brook and Vestavia. How can I make that assertion? Here are the numbers:

Crime in the central downtown (85-block area) that CAP patrols has dropped 55% from 1995-2011. Continue reading Downtown Birmingham safe as Mt. Brook or Vestavia