Where'd 'Mighty Jim' go?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The top picture, found in City Limits" photo archives with no information about its photographer or when it was taken, shows a store on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 145th Street in what we guess is around 1980. The bottom image is what the same location looks like today. Since 1978, when real estate records indicate Mighty Jim Realty bought the property from the late previous owner's estate, more than the awning has changed. When Mighty Jim got the property, some $184,000 changed hands; in 2011 the assessed value of the building was more than $2 million. In 1990 Manhattan Community District 10 was 88 percent black and less than 2 percent white; now it's mound 60 percent black and more than 10 percent white. The areas 36 percent poverty rate in 2000 fell to 27 percent in 2010. Mighty Jim's Deft survived at least until 2005, when a fire ravaged the building.

--Jarrett Murphy