The adults who live on this stretch of South Street near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard shake their heads when they hear about such innocence lost, but they don't expect things to be perfect around here.

They just want a little peace and quiet, and no return to the time when young men stood at the corner of MLK and South selling crack and sex on the front steps of a church.

In those days, the storied intersection was known as the Million Dollar Spot -- drug dealers and prostitutes staked their claims on the corner and made plenty of cash plying their trades.

Almost a decade later though, the crack dealers and prostitutes have moved on, raising crack's profile citywide but fortunately for residents here, leaving the Million Dollar Spot unremarkable and empty.

"It's quiet now," says Jacqueline Haddocks, a longtime resident of South Street who would not have said the same thing nine years ago, when she told The News-Journal that her son was killed in 1986 by drug-related street violence near her home. "You don't hear about many problems here anymore."

Haddocks has lived in the same house on South for 38 years. Like her neighbor Jessie Stevens, who moved to the neighborhood in 1959, she has seen the good, the bad and the ugly here.

But these days both Haddocks and Stevens are relieved their street is no longer prisoner to the crack-dealing "corner boys" and women who sold their bodies and souls for a few bucks and a rock.

Aggressive code enforcement by the city and redevelopment are the heroes that have slain the crack dragon, Stevens and Haddocks said. Gone are the ominous MLK Apartments where many of the drug dealers lived and other dilapidated structures that served as havens for the criminals.

"There is hope," said Lt. Jesse Godfrey, who heads the Daytona Beach police department's narcotics task force. "Back when it was going off, it was going off and these people had no rest."

Godfrey drives down MLK and South and points out a handful of vacant lots that once served as hot spots for trouble. The My Super Store convenience store that used to stand on the northwest side of the street was one of the biggest headaches for police. The building, razed years ago after the owner died, was the place where many neighborhood drug dealers made their connections.

"The bottom line is redevelopment and displacement (of the drug dealers,)" Godfrey said. "Code enforcement and the city buying up some pieces of land and getting rid of a lot of these hot spots has changed the complexion and intensity of what used to be crack corner and this crack-infested neighborhood."

So what has happened, says Michele Sanders, coordinator of the city's Weed and Seed program, is that the crack dealers have gone elsewhere. Sanders concedes the MLK and South neighborhood is no longer the prolific moneymaker it once was, but that does not mean there's not a Million Dollar Spot somewhere else.

"The problem has just multiplied," says Sanders, who lives only a couple of blocks from the infamous corner. "Crack is rampant in this city, and it has spread to other areas.

Regardless of the improvements in this area, everyone admits there are still reminders of the ugly past. They are most evident in the youngest and most innocent residents, children who were not even born when the Million Dollar Spot was the place to score a piece of crack.

The Rose Marie Bryon Children's Center at 628 South St. is an after-school refuge for children of all ages who attend Turie T. Small Elementary on South and Campbell Middle School on nearby Keech Street.

Center director Janet Elam-Bryant said she has heard some of her youngest charges -- the 4- and 5-year-olds -- play a new version of cops and robbers called "dope dealer and cops."

White rocks found on the ground replace crack cocaine and blades of grass are used to mimic marijuana, Elam-Bryant said. The children stuff these into their pockets and another youngster pretends to arrest them.

"We try to provide a place for them to come and play and get away from that reality for a little while each day," Elam-Bryant said. "This is a place where they can be children."

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