In a message dated 08/04/2000 11:20:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> That website also carries pleas to "Save Elvis' Teenage Home" and "Save the
>  Haughwout Building from Inappropriate Awnings".

I can't comment on the inappropriate awnings, but Elvis' teenage home is a
pretty interesting preservation story. I remember seeing a television news
report on this. The building is low-income housing, with perhaps some
significance as 20th Century public housing, but mainly gets its fame from
Elvis' time there. As clipped from the  website
(http://www.openair.org/lauder/home.html) :

"From 1949 to 1953 Elvis Presley lived in a public housing project in
downtown Memphis called Lauderdale Courts. During these years he was in High
School, he was developing the skills that eventually made him famous. He
would practice in the basement laundry room and on the grassy Market Mall,
and he would perform at parties in the Recreation Hall. Elvis' childhood was
poor but dream-filled. Just three years after moving from Lauderdale Courts
he was at the top of the entertainment field. Often, after he became famous,
he would drive his friends and visitors past Lauderdale Courts to show them
where he had come from.

The Memphis Housing Authority, working with the U.S. Dept. of Housing and
Urban Development, has voted to demolish the building where Elvis lived as
part of their de-densification program. 185 Winchester is slated to become a
parking lot. "

More importantly, as I recall from the news piece, Lauderdale Courts is not
an abandonded, failing project. To the contrary, the building(s) have a
closely knit community of low-income, residents, who take pride in living in
the building where Elvis started his singing career.

And whether you like it or not, I think Elvis is arguably the greatest pop
culture icon of the 20th c.

Sign me,
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