Along Morris Avenue

I have admired this gate with the lion heads for many, many years. I've  photographed them every way I know of to get them just right. Morris Avenue is an historic cobble stoned avenue just as you enter downtown Birmingham, off 20th Street. It's famous for the Peanut Depot across the street but this office gate is my favorite.

CDP Theme Day - Rust and Ruin

Today my fellow City Daily Photo bloggers are posting their take on this month's theme - RUST AND RUIN. This was easy. I love this stairway on Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham. I think it fits the theme quite well.  For more of my fellow bloggers' theme photos, click right HERE!

New Kids on the Block

Kinetic Communications moved into an old caboose on cobblestoned Morris Avenue this past  year and have made quite a statement.  I would love to get inside their super cool offices and have a look around.

Birmingham Rouge - Vintage Peanut Roaster

I love the Peanut Depot on Morris Avenue downtown. It's like stepping back in time. They have been roasting peanuts since 1907.  This beauty caught my eye of course!

Urban Oasis

My B'ham photography buddies know just where this is, but my guess is that most of you do not. Hint: Walk down Morris Avenue and hang a right at the parking lot under the railroad tracks. Cool huh???

Camo

The Peanut Depot on Morris Avenue has been roasting peanuts since 1907.  They roasts them all day long Monday through Friday.  Folks come from near and far to buy them in the old fashioned paper bags. Sometimes they're still warm.  It's hard to get out of the store before you start cracking those shells.  A bird buffet.

Shoot Out On Morris Avenue

St. Louis Daily Photoblogger Bob Crowe, and his lovely wife Carolyn visited me earlier this month.  Bob and I have been blog friends since I started this blog in June 2008. We finally met face to face and got to shoot up Birmingham.  We photographers have some crazy ways of getting just the right angle on a shot!

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Parking

Last  Sunday, while showing Bob and Carolyn Crowe Birmingham's historic Morris Avenue, I went poking around for something I'd missed all the other times I'd been there to shoot.  This caught my eye. Photographer's are a weird bunch, I know.

Zig, zag, zig,zag.....

Morris Avenue

Fire escapes are eye candy!

"It's A Great Day To Be a Peanut!"

Ms. Peanut, as we call her,  is the spokesperson for The Peanut Depot on Morris Avenue. Every Saturday she dons this great but WARM peanut costume and happily calls to shoppers that pass by her booth at the Pepper Place Market. No matter how hot and humid, she is smiling, cheerful and just adorable!  I don't know how much she gets paid to do this but whatever the amount.......it's not enough!  Oh that everyone loved their job as much as she does!

NOTE: Thanks to readers Harriet and Dystopos for supplying her name....Felicia Jackson and this information about her here!

Birmingham Rouge - The Caboose

Morris Avenue

Downtown Birmingham

You Don't Have Mail

Morris Avenue

Looks like a long time since the mailman left anything here.

Alabama HOT!

Last Sunday morning as I was giving my blog friend Daryl, one last shoot around town,  before she jetted off to cooler climes, we stopped first on Morris Avenue. It's one of Birmingham's most photogenic historic places... cobblestones and all.  I've been there many times with photography classes and really thought I'd seen it all. Happily I looked at it with new eyes and found some nice ones. This vintage Birmingham News/ Post Herald thermometer caught my eye, and was especially significant, since Daryl was wilting in our humid temps as I was shooting!

Put a Little South in Your Mouth!

Alabama ranks third in the nation for peanut production.  400 million pounds a year to be exact.  The Peanut Depot on Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham still roasts them  on site in some fine old roasters.  I've eaten my fair share.

March Theme Day - Passageways

It's that time again. The first of every month is City Daily Photo Theme Day. This month our theme is Passageways. I love this day each month. How fun to see the many ways CDP bloggers all over the world take the theme and run with it.

My photo today is from a passageway on historic Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham. Rust and grunge make for an interesting photograph sometimes I think!

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Merci to my friend Daryl up in NYC. My faithful Theme Day reminder amie!

100 Strangers Challenge - The Peanut Depot

Stranger # 96

Strangers # 97 & 98

A few weeks ago we paid another visit to the Peanut Depot here. Well while I was there, I met these nice ladies, who had stopped by to stock up on a BIG sack of peanuts. They were nice enough to pose on their cycles before they roared off down the cobblestoned Morris Avenue. Inside, this very friendly employee let me photograph him as well. My Strangers # 96, 97, and 98. We're almost there!!

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut!

As promised, Monday I hit the streets to make up for lost time. I got to Historic Morris Avenue and pulled over. The Peanut Depot was open for business! I usually photograph that area on the weekends and have posted an exterior photo *here. I don't know why I never thought about going on a weekday. The Peanut Depot has been right here, roasting peanuts the old fashioned way without oils or preservatives for over 100 years. Stepping inside is like going back in time. The old roasters are cranking away, and they still sell them in brown paper bags. You can get them roasted, salted, cajun and raw. And for you hard core southerners, they have boiled peanuts as well. Check their website and order some.

My thanks to the owner and friendly staff for allowing me to roam all over the place photographing . Oh, and I bought myself a paper bag full for the road. We'll come back here. This is a photographer's buffet as Bob Crowe likes to say.

Peanut Factoid: Approximately 1/2 of all peanuts grown in the USA are grown within a 100 mile radius of Dothan , Alabama, the Peanut Capital of the World!

* When I went back to find the URL for the previous post, I stopped to read the comments. That was shortly after I started my blog. How fun to read the comments and find that most of them are still with me, and I do miss those that aren't!