Change Is Clear

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The "broken windows theory" can be shattered only by people who step outside their houses to sweep it up.

Vicky Leonard-Chambers, a white woman, moved into this neighborhood 15 years ago and made it her home.

"One of the first things I started doing was beautifying the tree boxes on the block because we had a lot of vacant properties," she said. "I wanted to make the block look good. My hidden agenda was if I made it attractive, maybe the drug dealers would move on and sell drugs elsewhere. It was that broken window theory. I took on the tree boxes to address crime through beautification."

One day while gardening, she noticed a drug dealer going into an alley behind a house with various crackheads. "I'm thinking he keeps going in the alley, he must have his stash back there." So she went to her house and got her dog and pretended to walk her dog in the alley. "I didn't realize the drug dealer had an assistant who was in the back yard. . . . The guy guarding the stash was this notorious drug dealer they thought had committed a murder and was known as the enforcer of this crew."

Leonard-Chambers stopped. "I was like, 'Oh, [expletive].' Hi there." She took her dog and walked away. I told my friend who was a U.S. attorney at the time. I said, 'Guess what happened?' She said, 'Vicky, you have got to stop following these drug dealers.' "

Ten years later, Leonard-Chambers is walking through the neighborhood. It is early evening, and if you walk with her she can tell you the story of this place by the neighborhood stores.

She stops first at the New Reservoir Market, a block away from Windows Cafe. A sign out front says it sells fresh meat, cold beer and wine, ice cubes.

The New Reservoir Market is not new. In fact, the owner, Tadesse Kasshaun, pulls out a black-and-white photo from 1957. The owners then were Jewish. The photo shows big bins of vegetables, a meat counter and shelves stocked with cans.

Kasshaun bought the store with his brother 15 years ago. They both had come from Ethiopia. Kasshaun is saying the neighborhood is changing. "Now, no crime."

Leonard-Chambers asks: "Well, wasn't the owner before you shot and killed?"

No, Kasshaun says, that was two owners ago.

"I have no fear," he says, adding he must face whatever comes. "I've never been held up. I'm a lucky guy."

He knows Abeje and he knows Windows has been robbed six times.

Kasshaun still has the plexiglass. "Maybe the glass helps," he says.

But soon the glass will be gone, and he, too, will join the legion of store owners throughout the city who have come from behind the plexiglass. "I'm thinking I will do that. The neighborhood changes. So I've got to change too."

Will you sell gourmet mustard? "I have mustard." He points to the shelf.

Leonard-Chambers: "We're talking about the fancy kind."

"When I remodel, I can get that, too," he says.

Leonard-Chambers leaves New Reservoir and crosses the street and stops in front of the A&L Market. The door is chained. The owner, Maurice Darnaby, was killed last year.

The chained door and the chilling story about Darnaby being gunned down around this time of the evening is reason for pause. The street seems so peaceful.

Some block matrons are still on their porches. Samuel McLemore and James Brathwaite, looking over their new landscaping, are discussing the Winter Blues Auction, a neighborhood association fundraiser. Levesque is scraping wallpaper off his entrance. His garden grows little orange buds. Young 20-somethings in spaghetti-strapped and cropped T-shirts are walking their dogs in Crispus Attucks Park.

"These are like all the new yuppie neighbors," Leonard-Chambers says. "They look so young. Like in their 20s or early 30s."

A girl with a ponytail is lying on the green grass. Her dog escapes from his leash and dashes off. She calls. The dog stops and turns to his owner. It is a lovely scene.

Leonard-Chambers moves on. She stops at the Flagler Market. Here the men on the sidewalk scatter as she approaches. Inside, the store is old.

"I've shamed the owners into painting the outside. I wrote a letter to [the owners], saying the neighborhood is changing. I don't think in the long run this will survive. I only come in when I'm desperate or I'm sick and want to make tomato soup or my husband, Jim, wants potato chips."

Leonard-Chambers steps outside the store and heads home. All the men on the sidewalk have vanished.