A small park with an outsized story.
Erskine Hawkins Park sits in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama , a stone's throw from the historic Tuxedo Junction streetcar crossing where jazz and community intersected for generations.
Ensley, Birmingham , near the historic Tuxedo Junction crossing.
Named in 2000 for Ensley's own Erskine Hawkins, the park anchors a neighborhood whose musical legacy is woven into American jazz history. It's used year-round for casual gatherings, weekly pick-ups, and , every fourth Saturday in July , as the beating heart of Function in the Junction.
Today the park is beloved and under-resourced. This project is a community-driven push to give it the shade, seating, art, sound, and stage it deserves , without erasing what makes it Ensley.
Erskine Hawkins Park
Ensley, Birmingham, Alabama , adjacent to the historic Tuxedo Junction streetcar crossing.
Erskine Hawkins , 'The 20th Century Gabriel.'
Born in Birmingham in 1914, Erskine Hawkins was a bandleader, composer, and virtuoso trumpeter who earned the nickname "The 20th Century Gabriel" for his soaring high-note playing. He led one of the great big bands of the swing era from New York's Savoy Ballroom.
In 1939, he co-wrote and recorded "Tuxedo Junction" , a tune named for the Ensley streetcar crossing where Black Birmingham gathered to dance, dine, and hear music. The song became an American standard, later a Glenn Miller hit, and remains an unofficial anthem of Birmingham.
The park was rededicated in Hawkins' name in 2000 , anchoring the memory of a musical legacy that started at this very intersection.
