The intersection of Bragg and South East streets lies in the shadow of an increasingly prosperous downtown Raleigh, less than a mile from the Progress Energy Performing Arts Center, the newly reopened Fayetteville Street and a $215 million convention center that will begin drawing visitors in 2008.

But at Bragg and South East, residents watch despairingly as drug sales flourish, alcohol is openly consumed on the street and prostitutes ply their trade morning, noon and night. Two young men were killed here two weeks ago in what police describe as a "gang-involved" shooting.

Two days later, Bessie Watson sat on her front porch and quietly gestured toward a woman standing at the corner of South East and Bragg.

"She's been out here for two weeks straight," said Watson, who moved to Bragg Street with her late husband in 1947. "She won't change clothes; and she won't go home. She got children." Watson sadly shook her head. "Chasing them drugs."

This corner and the surrounding South Park neighborhood remain untouched by the new restaurants, condos and hotels that are planned or are being built a few blocks to the north. City and community leaders are pleased with the progress downtown but say the contrast in South Park reflects poorly on Raleigh as a whole.

"It is the best of times for some and the worst of times for others," said Raleigh city Councilmember and mayor pro tem James West, whose district includes South Park. "But the high tide is supposed to raise all ships. We have to focus on these communities in the same way we focus on others if the city is going to achieve its objectives."

It's not for lack of trying by police and community groups that the neighborhood remains beset by drugs and crime. In 2004, South Park was one of 300 communities across the country designated as a "Weed and Seed" site by the U.S. Department of Justice. The initiative aims to prevent and reduce violent crime and drug abuse by helping police weed out criminal activity and human services agencies seed neighborhood revitalization.

And early next year, Raleigh police will begin a new approach to take drug dealers out of neighborhoods such as South Park, by offering street-level dealers who quit selling drugs assistance in finding housing, jobs and life's necessities. Those who continue will be arrested and vigorously prosecuted.

Police will say only that some part of Southeast Raleigh will be one of the areas targeted for the new effort. "The program will be replicated in other neighborhoods if it is successful," spokesman Jim Sughrue said.

Baboucarr Njie, 34, knows the consequences of trying to stand up to the drug dealers in South Park.

On Aug. 14, someone robbed him and cracked the top of his head open with an iron pipe while he was working at AJ's Grill & Groceries on Bragg Street. Njie, a native of Gambia, is convinced it occurred because he calls the police whenever drug dealers gather outside the store.

"They see me as the enemy because I keep on calling 911," Njie said.

The South Park neighborhood is a blue-collar assortment of apartments and modest bungalows bounded by Martin Luther King Blvd. to the north and a rundown industrial area off Garner Road to the south.

Watson, 87, says she remembers when the neighborhood was a beautiful place. "Everybody treated everybody like people," she said. "Everybody was working. Look at all these big healthy men and women flopping out here all day long."

South Park is plagued by poverty and is home to mostly transitory residents without a long-term investment in the community. Though the majority of residents are law-abiding, the neighborhood is a magnet for crime.

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