PHOTOS: Looking at two neighborhoods

Contractors walk into an Art Deco building at 81st Street and South Vermont Avenue to bid on a redevelopment project. For the last three years, no homicides have occurred in a remarkable patch of South Los Angeles. Measuring a mile wide from Hoover Street to Halldale Avenue and stretching from 73rd to 85th Street.  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Debbie Holt, 51, kisses her grandson Jovan Harris, 2, at West 107th Street and South Vermont Avenue. Holt lost a child to violence in 2002.  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Gilder Acuna, 25, paints the front door of a home near 73rd Street and South Vermont Avenue. No homicides have occurred in the area in the last three years.  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Haily Alvarez, 8, walks home with her grandmother Elizabeth Gonzalez, near Raymond Avenue and 74th Street.  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)