Tuxedo Apartments for Rent

The Tuxedo neighborhood of Birmingham is a middle-class neighborhood. 17th Alley, 18th Alley, 22nd Street, Avenue 7 and Avenue I are some of the streets that border this community.

The neighborhood is urban in an area of average population density. Residents live in houses, condominiums, and apartments. Over half of Tuxedo’s homes are owner-occupied.

Tuxedo is close to highways 20, 59, 120 and 269. Although most residents use personal vehicles for the local commute, Amtrak and the Birmingham International Airport are available for destinations outside of the city. The Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority (MAX) provides buses for residents and tourists.

Jazz musician Erskine Hawkins immortalized his hometown of Birmingham when he wrote the song, “Tuxedo Junction” in 1939. The popular song was about the neighborhood’s Tuxedo Junction, a famous local nightlife destination for blacks from the 1920s to the 1940s. Since 1910, the Tuxedo neighborhood was the start of many musical careers. “Tuxedo Junction” became a best-selling, national Number 1 hit recorded by Glenn Miller and his orchestra in 1939.

Tuxedo is close to Downtown Birmingham and the Smithfield Historic District. The district was built in the 1890s as a neighborhood zoned for professional, middle-class black families. It was once the home of businessman A. G. Gaston, one of the first African-American millionaires in the United States.

The Birmingham entrepreneur was known as a quiet advocate for the equal treatment of blacks. He built the A. G. Gaston Gardens in the 1960s. It is a historic site of the first hotel owned by an African American. Gaston’s hotel was a first-class establishment that housed black guests and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.