The ghosts of Auburn Avenue still haunt the storied Atlanta street where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born and black wealth thrived for decades.

Today, the street 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 – all located along the street. 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. The situation represents a decades-old struggle to balance the need to honor the legacy of the neighborhood, while helping the area catch up to the booming development happening across much of the rest of the city. This week, the Sweet Auburn Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places’ 11 Most Endangered list for the second time since 1992 in an effort to spur preservation-oriented development and return the area to a semblance of its former glory.

Some say time may be running out.

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