Birmingham Hotel
The Birmingham Hotel was a 6-story hotel location on the northwest corner of 18th Street and 2nd Avenue North. The plaster-faced building, constructed in the late 1890s, exaggerated its verticality with tall windows and sleek ornament. An octagonal corner tower originally supported a rooftop observation platform while the long facade on 18th Street was topped with a stepped gable with deep cornices which were later removed.
In 1910 the Birmingham Hotel offered rooms on the "European plan" for $1.00 and up.
The business was renamed the New Florence Hotel in 1916, taking the name of the just-demolished Florence Hotel a block east, though the businesses were not related.
By the mid-1930s, the New Florence Hotel had moved to 406½ 18th Street North and served mainly long-term residents. Joseph Anderson managed the hotel and Mae Grady managed the New Florence Cafe on the ground floor. The hotel was destroyed by fire on June 6, 1935. A guest at the hotel was suspected of intentionally setting the fire, which caused two fatalities.
References
- "Suspect Jailed in Birmingham Fire Case" (June 7, 1935) The Tuscaloosa News
- Polk's Birmingham (Jefferson County, Ala.) City Directory (1935) Richmond, Virginia: R. L. Polk & Co.
- Sulzby, James Frederick (1960) Historic Alabama Hotels and Resorts. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817353097