Little Rays of Sunshine in Riot Areas : Rebuilding: Slowly, the plywood is coming down as businesses begin replacing and uncovering the glass in windows.

Slowly, gingerly, the plywood is coming down.

Each day, it seems, newly polished glass is shining from more and more storefronts in riot-torn areas of Los Angeles. But in many cases, it brings little more than a semblance of normalcy.

“I’m having second thoughts,” Jose Adame, manager of the International Auto Parts store on Western Avenue near Melrose Avenue, acknowledged Wednesday as workers scrubbed windows that had been boarded up in the heat of the riots.

For two weeks he had worked behind sheets of plywood, worried about a recurrence of rioting.

But now, he said, “I need the light.”

Adame already had closed up with concrete the openings of side windows where looters had broken in to steal 40% of his stock. The shelves had been refilled, the computers set up again. The plywood covers were the last tangible evidence of the siege mentality that he and so many others on the block had felt.

Removing them was a sign of trusting Los Angeles again. But that trust is shaky. Adame nearly put them back up when he heard Tuesday afternoon about the mistrial in the case of a Compton police officer accused of shooting two Samoan brothers 19 times.

He decided to take the chance. “You’ve got to go on and continue your normal life,” Adame said with a nervous smile.

Across the street, Kap S. Lee wasn’t ready.

“I don’t feel safe enough,” the 57-year-old owner of Sevon Furniture said inside his store.

Most of the furniture stores on this stretch of Western seemed to escape looting. Owners like Lee, along with friends, patrolled the roofs during the rioting. Lee slept there 10 nights.

His store’s windows suffered only some pellet shots, but Lee covered them with sheets of plywood just the same. Only a “feeling of trust” would make him take the wood down, he said, unable to express what would bring him to that point.

“I hope in the next few weeks, maybe,” he said. “I’ll watch.”

Down the street, the employees of From Italy, another furniture store, sounded as though they were going to keep their windows covered for months. Local students have already painted murals on two of the largest plywood panels, lending an air of permanency.

“You know, there is going to be another trial of Mr. Powell. If he wins, it’s going to happen again,” said saleswoman Nicole Elofer, 19, referring to Laurence M. Powell, the Los Angeles police officer who will be retried on charges of excessive force under the color of authority in the beating of Rodney G. King.

“Las Vegas has been having problems,” added manager Edward Lavi, 29. “Now the National Guard is leaving Los Angeles. We’ll see. . . .”

Nearby, David Kim, 24, watched the glass go back up in the convenience store at the Mobil station that he and his family operate. Before Wednesday, the plywood covering his broken windows had carried a large hand-painted message: “We Want Peace.”

“On the 30th of April they looted the station,” Kim said. Since then, fearing the looters’ return, he has been carrying much of his merchandise home every night and taking it back in the morning.

Kim put off ordering new glass, but finally did so because he thought the plywood was bad for business. “Sales have gone down almost 30%,” he said. “It looks like a war zone, and I assume they don’t feel comfortable coming in.”

A UCLA graduate, Kim said he was raised in Los Angeles by an immigrant Korean mother who worked and saved for 30 years to buy the station a year ago. Now he is not sure he feels comfortable staying there. “Koreans are targeted,” Kim said. “It’s like we were raped.”

The sunlight now streams through his windows. But for Kim, that is hardly a symbol of a new beginning.

“It’s been too ugly,” he says.