Cobb Lane was once Birmingham’s Bourbon Street. After fire, it’s charred memories

Those who never had a martini at the Blue Monkey Louge probably will never understand.

At one time, Cobb Lane was Birmingham’s cobblestone version of Bourbon Street, running parallel to the 1300 block of 20 th Street South in Five Points South.

“My stepmother (Shelley Clayton) and Dad’s place was the top balcony overlooking Cobb Lane,” said Blush Salon owner Savanah Hrbek, whose business space was destroyed in a fire on Halloween morning. “It felt almost like New Orleans back there, the lights and the cobblestone, the bustling, it was just amazing. It just felt old and wonderful.”

That era of Cobb Lane’s glory, which had already faded, may have come to an abrupt and decisive end with the Oct. 31 fire that displaced 19 residents and destroyed most of the Cobb Lane historic buildings, i