The view from Conkey Park is a boarded-up building, an empty lot, and a small convenience store. On a February afternoon, about a half-a-dozen young men work in pairs selling drugs on Conkey Avenue, near the park. They scurry over to cars on both sides of the street, asking drivers if they need marijuana.

The newly created park, a sliver of space on the northeast corner of Clifford and Conkey Avenues, is at the center of a tug of war between residents and dealers. The park is symbolic, says Tom Frey, a board member with the Genesee Land Trust. Residents see it, he says, as a piece of a larger, multi-pronged approach to reclaim the neighborhood.

"You have to start by getting people involved," Frey says. "Residents are engaged in this and they see this park as theirs."

Landscaping, stone hedges, and tables for dominos - a favorite pastime in the Latino community - were the first phase of the park's development. Residents and community organizers hope a grant will provide money to install playground equipment in the park this summer.

The planned El Camino-Butterhole-Seneca Park Trail will eventually become one of the park's borders, Frey says. The urban trail will wind through the northeast neighborhood to St. Paul Street and connecting with the Genesee Riverway Trail. Construction on the $2-million federally funded project will begin this summer.

The Ibero American Development Corporation plans to build a senior housing development north of the park, as well as new housing on Conkey Avenue. Altogether, Frey says, the potential for significant improvement is there.

But the drug trade remains a persistent problem, says Miguel Melendez, a neighborhood coordinator with Ibero. Residents, many of whom have lived in the area for decades, cite it as their number-one concern. They have begun organizing street-by-street block clubs, an approach that Melendez says is starting to show results. And a police surveillance camera is planned for Conkey Park.

"That corner where the park is has always been a problem," Melendez says. "But as one resident said to me, we have to put neighbor back into the hood."