The air fills auspiciously with the sounds of hammers and saws as new homes are built. Cash registers chime at Walgreens at 23rd Avenue South and Jackson Street, a corner that had three empty lots for 25 years. New tennis courts beckon from a city park, a summer festival delivers reggae and blues, and a tree-lined pedestrian trail is scheduled to open this year. Gai's Northwest Bakery on South Weller Street is a relic of those times. Established by Italian immigrant Giglio Gai, the bakery has been wafting the hearty smell of baking bread for more than 50 years.
Customers can still buy freshly baked rolls and loaves at the bakery's thrift store.
Dolores Bradley, a community activist long known as the hell-raising grandmother of the neighborhood, remembers the prosperous commerce of yesteryear. She was 23 when she and her husband bought their home in 1946 with a GI loan. Now 73, she can still picture the old soda fountains, the department stores, and the cable cars that carried her to Chinatown.