From Ruin to Rebirth in D.C.

"It was an exciting time," said Williams, who lives in Chevy Chase.

Each new store was progress, if only incremental. But what would it take to create the massive infusion of investment needed to transform entire neighborhoods?

In the wasteland that had become 14th Street, Bob King, a college student at the time, found a mission trying to rebuild the neighborhood in which he had grown up, the son of a janitor who worked in a building in which only whites could rent apartments.

Four months after the riots, King turned the ravaged remains of what had been a pawnshop into a community center, where he handed out donated food and clothing. Later, he won election to a local advisory board promoting the reconstruction of the corridor.

For more than a decade, King trudged to endless community meetings, listening to residents recite demands for new housing, restaurants and stores.

"They always had the same question," said King, now 62 and an assistant to the District's parks director. " 'How long? How long will we have to wait?' And I always gave them the same answer: 'Not long.' "

In time, he said, he stopped believing his own words.

Despite promises of developers' interest and the rise of new low-income apartments, vast stretches along the corridors were vacant for decades, including 12 acres at the center of Columbia Heights.

The corridors languished for myriad reasons, not the least of which was that District leaders during the 1980s lobbied developers to rebuild downtown, which became depressed after the riots. At other points, corruption scandals and financial crises made the District less than attractive to investors.

Washington's difficulties were shared by many cities, which deteriorated after World War II with the emergence of interstate highways and the suburbs. In Washington's case, the riots accelerated the process.

"We had decided as a country that these neighborhoods could not be saved, and there was no point in throwing good money after bad," said Paul Grogan, author of "Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival."

"There was no quick fix," he said. "The deterioration of these cities happened a block and building at a time, and it had to be put back together that way."