The residential portion of the Sweet Auburn Historic District, including the home where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born at right. Today Auburn Avenue is a shell of its former self, the bustling mix of banks, night clubs, churches, meat markets and funeral homes long gone, replaced with crumbling facades and cracked sidewalks. Hundreds of thousands of people still flock to Auburn Avenue to see King's birth home, the church where he preached and the crypt where he and his wife, Coretta, are buried. But tourists have little reason to linger. While King's legacy has been preserved, Auburn Avenue's business community has never recovered from the exodus of the black community that supported it. This week, the area was placed on the National Register of Historic Places' 11 Most Endangered list for the second time since 1992 in hopes of spurring preservation-oriented development.

Tourists visit the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta.

A visitor stands before the crypt of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta, along Auburn Avenue.

A man walks under the Interstate 75/85 overpass whose construction cut the Auburn neighborhood in half.

National Park Rangers stand outside the original Atlanta Life Insurance Company building on Auburn Avenue, dating back to 1905.

A man walks down the street after asking club goers for spare change in the Auburn Avenue district.

A man pushes a stroller across Auburn Avenue.