On Second Avenue North, twenty-seven stories rise above you, once known simply as the Comer Building. Designed by William C. Weston and completed in 1913, it rises 27 stories and 325 feet above the street. When it opened it was the tallest building in the Southeast, and it remained the tallest in Alabama from 1913 to 1969 and the tallest in Birmingham until 1972.
Today it stands as the fifth-tallest in the city and still claims the distinction of being the tallest neoclassical building in the South. The penthouse suite was the longtime home of WSGN Radio at 610 AM, once one of the most powerful and popular Top 40 stations in the South; that top-floor space has since been converted into commercial space and high-end condominiums. On December 14, 2005, the building's famous red neon sign was re-lit for the first time since the mid-1990s, a bright signal of the building's renewal.
The City Federal Building was an early precursor to the revival of Birmingham's North Side district and the resurgence of 2nd Ave North, and it even turns up in a song by Birmingham soul band St. Paul and The Broken Bones. Notice the neoclassical lines climbing skyward and the red neon sign glowing above Second Avenue North.