The family of jazz legend Cab Calloway is rallying support to save his Baltimore rowhouse from demolition and preserve it as a protected landmark, The Baltimore Sun reported.
According to the news outlet, the head of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation — named after the rapper who spent his teen years in Baltimore — are both pushing for landmark status for the vacant and dilapidated house.
Five of Cab Calloway's family members — including two of his three living children — have also issued a statement saying they are "building a coalition of partners and friends to create a landmark and thriving destination of which all the residents of Baltimore can be proud."
Tammy Hawley, a spokeswoman for Baltimore's Department of Housing and Community Development, said "no immediate course of action [is] taking place" regarding demolition; the house is owned by the city. A decision is "at least three-to-six months" away, she said.
But some community activists want a park to replace the blighted buildings that include Calloway's home, the Sun reported.
"Cab's family and the Druid Hill community are going to have to come together and figure out how to memorialize his legacy," City Councilman Leon Pinkett told the news outlet.
"Whether that's preserving the house or dedicating a park with a monument to Cab, I think it's too soon to say."
Actor, band leader and scat singer Calloway, who was born in 1907 and died in 1994, was dubbed "the King of Hi-De-Ho" and widely associated with Harlem's Cotton Club. According to the Sun, Calloway said Baltimore had been "one of the greatest centers of jazz."
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