Neighborhoods change -- get older, poorer, even dissapper, then rise again. Historically, this process has been slow and piecemeal, but now, especially in desirable places like San Francisco, there are pressures to move very quickly. This is generally welcomed as a sign of growth and progress, but to people in and of the neighborhood, the effects are sad, even painful -- the loss of a homeplace. PNS commentator Charles Jones is a 24-year-old father of three who writes for YO! Youth Outlook, a publication of Pacific News Service.

I was born into Hunters Point and I have lived here half my life. I shop at Foods Co., I eat at B&Js in the morning, and I wince every day on my way to work as the 15 bus rolls past the McPlaything that used to be the Tic Toc Drive-in.

Hunters Point is a city within a city, with an abundance of stores, groceries, schools and parks. I was 17 before I even saw downtown. A predominantly black population shares its housing projects, or works in the warehouses along the back streets, with an infusion of Samoans, Asians and Latinos.

Over the years, Hunters Point has changed. It has seen the early stages of urban renewal, lost community landmarks and gained Asian and white new arrivals. These changes marked the end of the ghetto I was born and raised in. Alarmingly poor (with the highest percentage of black-owned businesses in the city), Hunters Point has always had its fair share of criminal activity. Most of it was money motivated, but over the past year, homicide, rape, and aggravated assault as well as robbery and burglary are all on the increase. The only other time when murder eclipsed money was in the 1980s, when the Hunters Naval Shipyard was closed down and cleaned out.

Now with Third Street -- the main artery of Hunters Pointy -- receiving a facelift, and the black population dwindling, what will be left of one of San Francisco's last inner-city environments?

MAY 2000

When someone does something, or has something done to them, in Hunters Point, six times out of ten I know the doer and/or the done to. Starvel Junious and Jarvis Baker, shot down this month, were childhood friends of my younger brother. Kenneth Gathron, killed in April, is a different story altogether. His younger brother and I are like brothers ourselves -- we've been friends in the truest sense of the word since 1991. Joe and I have done nearly everything together and have thankfully lived to tell the tale.

So I know these people, and when they die I grieve. But when I pick up a newspaper and see their lives trivialized, when I read that they were "reportedly" vanquished over something as petty as who the premiere local rap act is, I get upset.

It almost seems like no one wants to explore the real community issues surrounding the deaths. Like the toxic waste in the shipyards, the lack of drug treatment and employment training facilities, or the accessibility of guns to youngsters. Instead, the media opted to simplify Starvel's killing, to spit on his attempts to lead a positive life. Police get to generalize and "profile" low-income housing residents, the reporter gets the story in on time, and once again rap music becomes the scapegoat.

Starvel and Jarvis died because the air in Hunter's Point is thick with fear and tension, and everyone knows that everyone else is strapped -- carrying a gun. Nearly any incident here can end up with you losing your life.

JUNE 2000 This month De La Soul -- the "Grateful Dead of Hip Hop" -- headlined another tour through San Fran, sharing the stage with many veterans, upstarts and artists who are changing their career direction. All brought messages of self-awareness and spiritual uplift to the black community.

"Look at this," rapper Common stated. "We all here together: black, white, Asian and Latino. For Hip Hop, y'all. Hip Hop did this." And as he spoke, my eyes wandered around the room, but rather than approval or pride in the diversity of the audience, I almost earled (vomited).

I used to believe that Hip Hop was universal, but now I feel as if something is being stolen from me.

The 20-something dot-com crowd was far too well represented. Rewind to the beginning of the show: Talib Kweli of Reflection Eternal, a black power spiritualist group, made a passionate plea for solidarity with the fellow black man. There was nearly no response, not because of a lack of black enthusiasm, but because there were so few black bodies in the audience.

Hell, if I didn't get press passes, I wouldn't have been there, either, and my space would've been filled by some yuppie, no doubt.

I'm proud that Hip Hop has reached these heights. But does mainstream success have to come at the expense of its core and creators, inner city black and Latino youth? It's bad enough that no local artists can play at the venue, but now I have to compete with dot-commies to get tickets to any event in the city. Hip Hop has been from its inception -- and always will be -- a poor black American's music and culture. So why are poor black people's presence being compromised for mainstream acceptance?

JULY 2000

For years it stood, a symbol of hope and self-reliance. "The Gym" at Newcomb and 3rd was a safe haven from the streets for at least a decade. Now it's little more than a memory, closed for months.

While there are other gyms, programs, and recreation centers in the neighborhood (though not nearly enough), most of them belong to the city. This one belonged to the people. It was a makeshift facility (a house, a storefront and a gym, all in one) with a raw, urban, "ghetto" feel.

A look inside would reveal hard bodies of every age and size -- sweating, grunting, flexing and smiling in approval in one of several cracked mirrors. I used to lift there, when I was re-conditioning my left arm after I separated my shoulder in high school football. I couldn't afford the hospital rehab, so I did it there at the gym the best way I could.

One day. I was packing to go home when I heard someone ask from behind, "Spot me?" I turned and stared directly at the navel of the Incredible Black Hulk. I looked down and saw the weight he wanted me -- weight 160, age 17 -- to hold for him. It was at least twice my weight!

Sensing my lack of confidence, he assured me, "Man, you got that!" and laid back on the bench. He easily did ten reps for three sets, but in the fourth, the bar slipped from his sweaty hands. I could've sworn that I was going to be responsible for that man's death. I barely had the strength to hold the bar and remember, I only had one fully functional arm.

In the quarter-second I could keep the bar up, he managed to roll out to safety. He sat there for one second, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Whoa! Good lookin' young blood!" He was thanking me when I felt I'd almost killed him.

Think about that story, and you'll understand the most important function of the facility. It gave the people of Hunters Point a connecting point: a place where relationships could be built around self-improvement and trust with people you really didn't have to know. You just knew they were from the same place as you.

AUGUST 2000

I still prefer to raise my kids in Hunters Point over any part of the city. Like I said, it's a city unto itself -- with many facets and lights that shine. Sundial Park has the best play structure in the city, and the only operational skateboarding facility. But neither one is used much anymore, and the park is now seen as a killing field.

As a child I was a daredevil and would do a backflip from any surface to any surface in that park -- including (if I could get to the top of it) the sundial that stood 20 to 30 feet high. Or I would go down the 20-foot concrete slide on cardboard (or skateboard). Then I would wash down the good time by dizzying myself into a stupor on "The Helicopter."

In the early 90s, local rap artists and producers like Budweiser and T.C. would get together, rent equipment and throw free concerts and barbecues in the park under the sundial. Hundreds of people from the community gathered on the grass, thoroughly enjoying themselves while eating BBQ, dancing, flirting, "peeling" (getting girls' phone numbers), and shouting "EERRAAYY!" when Cougnut performed "Skanless," or when RBL performed their bona fide classic ode to herb "Don't Gimme No Bammer" with the sundial towering behind them.

It was all local love and when I got the chance to perform there myself, it felt like I was stepping on that Apollo stage...all my confidence riding on my sleeve waiting to be booed off.

But back in the crowd, I was like a star. People coming from all directions supporting, telling me I had talent, that I was tight, asking if I had an album coming out. I felt like they were there for me.

There were other places. The beautifully-painted Joseph Lee gym (now in need of restoration), where I spent a bunch of summers and Saturdays as the undisputed (self-proclaimed) King of Trick Shots. No one at Joe Lee could repeat my patterned hook shot from the opposite key. "Can you spell "horse," children? H-O-R-S-E," I'd say as I eliminated yet another frustrated elder game after game.

Hunters Point is the greatest example of the rule they would have you believe is the exception.

Blessed with the best view in the city, the bay front community is a beautiful place (in some parts) with lots of trees and vegetation. Almost every housing project in the district has an organic vegetable garden. There are residents of many different cultural and racial backgrounds. All that, and my family is here. I was raised in the area myself, know my way around. Familiar faces and places. What else could one ask for in a community?

"Safe streets?" Ha! Have you forgotten Columbine already? The Oklahoma City bombings? Gay bashing across the bay at Novato High School? There are no safe streets in America.

SEPTEMBER 2000

It's happened again. On September 6, Marvell "Wood" Despanie was found shot to death in his red Mustang on Shafter and Lane. Reported as yet another victim in an ongoing, so-called gang war, the 23-year-old was found by police responding to reports of gunfire in the area.

I didn't know Wood all that well, but I'd seen him around. He seemed like a nice dude who had nice things. He had nothing to do with the so-called gang war between the housing residents of Hunters Point, so his murder seemed -- literally -- senseless.

There was a second shooting that night, one that nearly took the life of a childhood friend of mine. I'll call him "L'il Dank" (his rap moniker), because 1.) there are people out there who want him dead and 2.) I'm not trying to incriminate him or insinuate that he has any relation to any "gang-related violence" in the community.

I've known L'il Dank since age five. He is a genuinely talented rap artist featured on several albums and is scheduled to release an album of his own on Big Block Records, the label more famous for its supposed links to the "rap/gang war in Hunters Point" than for its music.

Since both Dank and Wood are in their twenties and one has a criminal record, their shootings haven't generated as much of an outcry as the killings of the teens Starvel and Jarvis (R.I.P.). But Wood's death and Dank's shooting do serve as yet another example of how edgy things feel now in the Hunters Point community.

OCTOBER 2000

I don't know what anyone will take away with them after reading this. It's hard to explain the complexities of life in Hunters Point to some who's not from there. But you have to make the decision for yourselves as to whether or not it really matters to you.

Not to say that's all bad. I'm not fighting to preserve the sanctity of ghetto America. I like seeing more people than ever on the bus with me going downtown to work and school every day. My beef is that the city is quietly pulling off one of those urban renewal/ removal moves, reconstructing a community that has been in dire need of attention -- while relocating its real residents.