Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee runs approximately 1.8 miles from the Mississippi River to East Street.  Created in 1841 and originally named Beale Avenue, it was immortalized in 1916 by composer, musician and bandleader W.C. Handy in his “Beale Street Blues.”  By the middle of the century, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters and more had all played Beale Street, recognized as one of the nation’s foremost cradles of the blues.  But by the mid-1960s, the legendary thoroughfare had fallen into decay.  On May 23, 1966, the area between…