HUNTSVILLE, AL. – In the mornings, Judy Perszyk sits on her back porch, sips a cup of coffee, and watches the activity in the alley behind her home in Five Points.

She considers herself one of the lucky ones – lucky to have an alley, lucky to live so close to so many neighbors, lucky to see her neighborhood from such an intimate perspective.

With an alley, she sees joggers, walkers, kids riding their bicycles to the drug stores for soft drinks and candy, and parents pushing infants in strollers.

“We know people behind us as well as the people beside us,” she said. “You get to see families grow up. You get to meet them and talk to them, and they live on completely different streets than you do. It leads to a sense of community.”

By the count of Perszyk and Patricia Ryan, a former city employee and editor of the Historic Huntsville Foundation quarterly, there are four designated alleys in downtown Huntsville: Cruse, Figures, Neal and Bannister alleys, all in the Twickenham and Old Town historic districts.

There are several other alleys in Five Points and the former mill villages. None, though, are designated alleys or streets, as the ones in Twickenham are.

In Madison, there’s Buttermilk Alley in the city’s historic downtown district.

“Certainly, they add charm,” said Ryan, longtime owner of the Figures house, an 1830s structure on Randolph Avenue next to Figures Alley. “They’re convenient. They’re shaded. It’s a wonderful place to walk.”

Ryan owned the Figures house from 1978-2002. Back then, she saw walkers and neighbors traversing the alley, using it as a cut-through to Randolph and Clinton Avenue.

In addition to being an editor for the historic quarterly, she also did architectural research for the city for eight years. Through her research, she has concluded that Figures Alley was constructed around 1850.

By her estimate, Figures Alley is about 300 feet long and about 15 feet wide, just enough for one car to go through today.

When it was built, though, it was the era of carriage houses, smokehouses and outbuildings. Alleys were used to access those buildings.

One reason they’re so narrow is because they were used long before the advent of cars. Another reason, said Ryan, is economics.

“You wouldn’t want a wide alley when you could see the property,” she said.

Banister is between Adams and Greene streets, on the south end of Twickenham. Nearby, there’s Neal, which runs between Franklin and Madison; and Cruse, which is between Franklin and Adams streets.

Banister, like parts of Figures, isn’t paved. Cruse is the longest and has the most houses.

Figures Alley is named in honor of William Bibb Figures, former editor and proprietor of The Southern Advocate, a paper aligned with the Whig Party. He was a former mayor and city alderman.

Banister is named after Dr. John Banister, former pastor of Church of the Nativity, Ryan said. Neal Alley is believed to be named in honor of Steven Neal, a former sheriff.

“They’re part of the ambience of the older districts,” Ryan said. “People use them for convenience.”

Perszyk has plenty of historical appreciation for alleys: She’s the vice chair of the Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission.

But, as much as anything, she likes the camaraderie that comes with living on an alley.

“Anyone who has an alley should celebrate it” she said. “I wave at the neighbors who are walking their dogs. They expect to see me.
“When you see somebody out cooking on a grill, you say, ‘What’s for dinner?’ ”