Nicknamed the "Magic City" due to the explosive growth it experienced in its heady steel producing days of the 19th and 20th centuries, Birmingham is experiencing a new magic in the modern day as a worthwhile tourist destination. The pollution from the smokestacks is long gone and families have found a reason to come back downtown again.
The McWane Center was created with kids in mind and is one of the crown jewels of the downtown district's renaissance that began in the late 1990s. Since opening in 1998 it has become the go-to place in town for parents and grandparents who want to educate as well as entertain their children. This is a hands-on science museum with many interactive displays, including the Shark and Ray Touch Tank, Air Canon and Bed of Nails exhibits. Each exhibit is designed to teach a different scientific discipline, such as Physical Science at the Anti-Gravity Mirror and technology at Animation Station. There is also an IMAX movie theater on the premises and a food court with a variety of fast food dining options.
Vulcan is a 56-foot tall statue that rests upon an even taller pedestal on top of Red Mountain overlooking Birmingham. There is an elevator that takes visitors up to an outdoor panoramic viewing platform. The statue is part of a 10-ten acre park containing a museum that tells the story of Vulcan and Birmingham. While kids may be interested in the exhibits in the museum, they usually just want to get up that elevator for a close up gander at the statue--the largest cast iron statue in the world and a representation of the Roman God of fire that is a symbol of the city's steel making past--as well as see the view of downtown skyscrapers in the valley below. Just before dark is a good time to visit, to see the sun set as the city turns on its lights.
It can be spooky, in a good way, for children to tour these former iron works that used to hum with life and cast a molten glow over the city. Sloss Furnaces is now tourist-friendly and has been declared a National Historic Landmark. Sloss, as the locals refer to it, used to employ armies of workers but today the area seems haunted. When you take a tour of the facilities in the middle of the day it turns darker, as you head deeper into a maze of enormous blast furnaces, smokestacks, water tanks, train sheds and industrial-sized pipes snaking in every direction. The site has become a popular festival and concert space and there is a popular haunted house tour at Sloss every Halloween season called the Fright Furnace. But perhaps the best time to go is when nothing else is going on and it feels like you and the young ones have the entire ghostly place to yourselves on a self-guided tour.
