We just received word that the current associate director of the Birmingham Public Library, Irene Blalock, has been named its new director. She was one of several candidates for the position, which received a lot of attention from The Birmingham News earlier this month. Barbara Sirmans, the former director, announced her retirement in August; Pamela Lyons has been serving as the organization’s interim director. According to the News’ account, Blalock has spent her entire career with the BPL.
Tag Archives: AL
Irene Blalock named new BPL director
Posted in The City
Tagged AL, Alabama, announcement, Birmingham, Birmingham Public Library, information, Irene Blalock, new director
A new way to Empower Alabama
Yesterday statewide nonprofit organization Empower Alabama announced that it would be closing its doors at the end of the month via email. Local progressive blog FreeThinkBham shared the news with folks in metro Birmingham via the posting of the email sent by the organization‘s executive director, Bradley Davidson. According to the note, many of its supporters have already created a political action committee, Front Door Democracy PAC, to focus on the 2010 general election.
Posted in politics
Tagged AL, Birmingham, closing, Empower Alabama, future plans, information, organization, politics, Statewide
Climbing comes to Birmingham’s Southside
An emergency room nurse, a fifth grade teacher, 15,000 screws, 5,000 t-nuts, 145 sheets of plywood, 2,100 square feet of eight inch padding, and thousands of pounds of steel is turning a 6,800 square foot warehouse on Birmingham, AL’s Southside built in 1911 into modern rock climbing gym with 3,900 square feet of climbing surface.
Joe Ortega (the ER nurse) and Adam Henry (the teacher) have been creating the 16-foot-tall bouldering walls out of steel beams and plywood since January. The new rock climbing gym, called First Avenue Rocks, is due to open in the second week of June at 2417 First Ave. South.
Tagged Adam Henry, AL, Alabama, Birmingham, Bob Farley, bouldering, facility, First Avenue Rocks, gym, information, Joe Ortega, opening, rock climbing, southside
The Memorial Day weekend countdown is here…
So let’s give you a few things to do to fill that last half hour fifteen minutes…
I was one of three bloggers that were interviewed for this week’s episode of WBHM‘s arts and culture program Tapestry. The segment was on blogging and featured myself, Wade Kwon and Ashley Umbaugh. You can check out the story as it ran or the excerpts from my extended interview. If you want to hear it on the radio, it’s on tomorrow morning at 11:30 a.m. on 90.3 FM.
Our conductor Jason Donaldson’s still suffering from the spill he took on his bike a couple of weeks ago, but he’s pulled together a great set of musical options for you to check out for the weekend. You can always follow Jason on Twitter to see what else he’s up to.
How about letting us know just what you’re doing this weekend… it’s our Magic City Question after all.
Posted in Elsewhere on The Terminal, Weekend plans
Tagged AL, Alabama, Andre Natta, audio, Birmingham, Magic City Question, radio, WBHM, Weekend plans
Random Shots: A year-round Pepper Place Market?
Photo: André Natta/bhamterminal.com.
Still waiting to get some additional information about this space, but it is currently being worked on in Birmingham’s Pepper Place. It appears that it will be another option for those seeking fresh produce in Birmingham (in addition to Jones Valley Urban Farm and the Jefferson County Farmers Market on Finley Avenue and a few others recently profiled in this Birmingham Weekly post). The sign says that the Farmers Market Cooperative will be “coming soon” though.
Posted in Random Shots
Tagged AL, Alabama, Birmingham, cooperative, Farmers market, Pepper Place, photos, Random Shots
Looking both ways in downtown Birmingham
Tonight those in the Birmingham Public Library‘s Arrington Auditorium beginning at 5:30 p.m. will hear the results of a study conducted by Operation New Birmingham, the Regional Planning Commission, the Birmingham Metropolitan Planning Organization and the City of Birmingham to look at turning some of our one-way streets back to two-way streets. They’ve been looking at 2nd, 3rd and 4th Avenues North and 13th, 14th, 17th and 18th Streets. Here’s some more info.
On the agenda: Langford reccommends cutting ONB budget
Most of the time when Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford makes an announcement, you’re never quite sure of what he means exactly. Take this morning for example when he casually spoke of cutting funding for Operation New Birmingham and moved on the next subject.
Needless to say this was a bit of an eyebrow raiser, but recognizing the potential for a conversation we sent out this tweet:
“Mayor Langford suggests that ONB be included in new Chamber/MDB/Region 20202 reorganization.”
Yes, we did notice the typo. Aside from that the local media had been pretty quite until now… This article posted by The Birmingham News removes any doubt about whether the mayor meant what he said. No official comments have been made by ONB, but considering that they received $450,000 in city funds last year, this could be a serious blow.
Image: ONB 50th anniversary logo.
Posted in On the agenda
Tagged AL, Alabama, Birmingham, City Council, cut, funding, Larry Langford, On the agenda, ONB, Operation New Birmingham, reduction, story, Twitter
