By Nancy H. McLaughlin Staff Writer for News and Record

Oct 18, 2006 - Updated Jan 26, 2015

Marilyn Poole dreams that one day more of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive will look like the much-heralded Southside development near downtown — the end of the street bustling with business and new life.

On her end of the street, in the Ole Asheboro community and beyond, condemned and boarded-up houses still dot the landscape and prostitutes sometimes stroll in the daylight.

“It hurts me to see a great man like Martin Luther King and they name the street after him and stuff like this is going on,” Poole said, resting on her Julian Street porch after a long workday. “There should be stores and everything. This is a perfect place for businesses. It’s embarrassing.”