Grandson Of Baltimore Jazz Musician Cab Calloway Fighting To Preserve Grandfather's Childhood Home
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- An effort to save the home of one of the nation's most notable jazz musicians is underway in Baltimore.
Cab Calloway's Druid Hill Ave. home is set to be demolished and his grandson is fighting for its preservation.
Virtually the entire 2200 block of Druid Hill Ave. is set to be torn down and even supporters of saving the house admit there may not be enough time.
"All I'm saying is before you demolish it, let's take a moment and think about it and see if we can do something that's positive for the people here in the community," Callaway's grandson Peter Brooks said.
Callaway was a former stable boy at Pimlico, paperboy, shoe shine and elevator operator. He broke the musical mold in the 1920s with a career that included the million record seller Minnie The Moocher and Bandleader at the New York Cotton Club.
"Once Cab Calloway was at the Cotton Club, he pretty much stayed," Brooks said. "OT became Cab Calloway, and that made him the first African American to have a national broadcast, internationally broadcast radio show."
Brooke's said that he would like to see his grandfather's house preserved as a destination.
Current plans call for saving 100 bricks and the marble steps from Calloway's house and incorporating them into the design of a park that is planned to be named after him.
His childhood home is one of many rowhomes on the block scheduled for demolition sometime after July 1.