Why were Birminghamians excited about gaining a new downtown park along the city's main line railroad tracks?

 

Railroad Park in Birmingham is featured in our Parks and Recreation episode highlighting exemplary parks and trails with fascinating backstories.  It's a 19-acre expanse of green with a manmade lake, streams and mounds that tie together the north and south sides of the city.  It also kicked off around 2,000 new housing units, bars, restaurants and a supermarket in the immediate neighborhood as well as sparked construction of an inviting minor league ballpark across the street.

 

Hear from Katherine Billmeier, first Executive Director of the Railroad Park Foundation, about what the railroads mean to Birmingham:

New and updated parks and trails are something cities have excelled at over the past 25 years.  Popular parks keep popping up everywhere, including in unexpected places such as Toledo, Lexington and Memphis, where proximity to waterways has made for great new public spaces in these three cities.

 

Below is a short preview video of our Railroad Park story:

 

An overview of Railroad Park in Birmingham below shows the adjacent tracks with freight trains moving in opposite directions:

 

Looking across Birmingham's Railroad Park to Children's Hospital on the left and Region's Field on the right below:

 

Saving the City creator Ron Blatman was recently featured in an extended interview in The Planning Report, a journal about cities out of Los Angeles.

 

 

If you like the idea of sharing ways to help make our cities better places (such as learning about trailblazing parks), join us to help complete the first four 60-minute episodes of the Saving the City series.  

 

. Why Cities Matter

. Living Downtown

. Parks & Recreation

. Family Ties

 

We're finalizing and clearing rights for hundreds of historic images and dozens of archival film clips that appear in our initial group of stories.

 

We are also working on an updated website to be released soon.

 

And, we are seeking a lead funder so we can start on our next six episodes, covering topics such as transportation, homelessness, urban universities and climate change.

 

 

Please share this newsletter with friends and family.  Our newsletter archive is here.

 

And check out our work and let us know what you think.  We're always eager to learn about new stories and be referred to people we should know about.

 

After watching Saving the City, you will never look at cities the same way again.

 

 

“The creation of a landscape is the interplay between human intention and nature’s generosity, shaping spaces that tell stories and endure through time.”

 

Frederick Law Olmsted, considered the father of American landscape architecture

How did Birmingham get its “Magic City” moniker?  After the city was founded in 1871, Birmingham grew so fast that by 1900, residents claimed the town sprung up by magic.