Fire Station No. 12 (former) Improvements – Birmingham AL

Description

The former Station No. 12 was built in 1929 in Woodlawn at 1st Avenue North and 57th Street North. Designed by Turner & Slater Architects in a residentially-scaled Tudor Revival style, the station was pulled back from the street to create a park space across from Woodlawn High School. Schoolchildren were welcomed to the grassy lawn, and public restrooms for “girls and boys” were included in the station’s floor plans. The two-bay garage, tucked under parallel gables with arched openings and fanlights, opened onto an alleyway. Unsightly functions such as hose-drying, barbecuing and coal deliveries were concealed in a rear service courtyard. The second floor dormitories were accessed by a winding stair in the building’s prominent corner turret, and egressed in emergencies via a polished steel fireman’s pole.

In 1960 Company No. 12 operated a one combination 1,000-gallon pumper and 65-foot ladder truck and a car for the East District chief from the station.

In the 1980s, the Engine Company moved to its new station in East Lake. The vacant building was purchased by Jefferson County Health Services, which already operated an adjoining Eastern Health Center. It was used for storage, but generally suffered from neglect. As windows were broken, they were boarded up. In 1990 the former station was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of a group of Birmingham’s Historic Fire Stations. In 2009, the building was completely renovated as the offices and meeting space for the Birmingham Dream Center, a mission outreach of the Church of the Highlands.

23 fire stations were fixed up as part of a Civil Works Administration or Civil Works Administration of Alabama Jefferson County Division under Birmingham Public Buildings 37-C-715 Project. The station was classified Class “A”. “Those needing general minor repairs, having sufficient sound value left in them to justify a thorough repairing, on which buildings was included painting inside and outside where needed, general carpentry repairs, including doors, windows and repairs to floors, or new floors; general repairs to masonry work and plaster or stucco, repairs to roof and sheet metal work, or new roof and sheet metal work installed. Plumbing, heating and wiring were put in good state of repair, and all minor changes such as moving partitions, or relocation of doors or windows were made.”