Main Street Birmingham - Preserve America Honors Historic Ensley on Capitol Hill

Contact: Adrienne Reyes Stevens

Main Street Birmingham, Inc.

Communications and Public Relations Manager

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JULY 13, 2007

Historic Ensley Honored by Preserve America on Capitol Hill

Note to Assignment Editors – We will be happy to coordinate interviews with Ensley community leaders.

Birmingham, AL – The U.S. Department of Interior’s National Park Service and the Preserve America initiative recognized the Ensley Historic Building and National Register Nomination as a 2007 Preserve America grant recipient at a ceremony on Capitol Hill on Thursday July 12, 2007.

Birmingham Mayor, Bernard Kincaid, accepted the award from First Lady, Laura
Bush and the Secretary of Interior. Also in attendance at the ceremony were Bill Gilchrist, Director of Planning, Engineering and Permits and David Fleming, Executive Director of Main Street Birmingham, Inc.

The City and Main Street Birmingham collaborated to apply for the $25,000 grant.

Tuxedo Junction and Ensley were the birthplace and training ground for many of Alabama’s jazz, soul and r&b legends. This grant will support research that will lead to the nomination of Ensley’s commercial district and Tuxedo Junction to the National Register of Historic Places, architectural guide to Ensley’s commercial district, the publication of a history of the cultural and industrial communities of Ensley and Tuxedo Junction and the establishment of these areas as destination points.

Main Street Birmingham, Inc. is a nonprofit under contract with the City of Birmingham to implement the BEACON program for neighborhood commercial district revitalization. The program targets nine urban commercial districts to strengthen economic development by utilizing the National Trust Main Street Center’s Four Point Approach ™ of design, organization, economic restructuring and promotion.

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