Harlem Redevelopment Skipped 126th Street and Park Avenue Angel Franco/The New York Times A developer has bought four lots on Park Avenue north of 126th Street, but not this one, which sits among them and where a man has lived in a trailer for years. There have been promises of a shiny hotel, a big office tower and a prominent commercial corridor. But in one bleak little pocket of Harlem, things have had a way of coming undone. So it is that below the thick arch of elevated railroad tracks and the rumble of Metro-North trains, the area around 126th Street and Park Avenue still resembles a giant, beat-up storage shed. For years, the rows of lots have resisted change, with their mix of U-Haul trucks for rent, vacant space tagged with graffiti and two separate but similar lots featuring mountains of wood and metal junk. It has been this way for so long that the blighted landscape goes largely unnoticed. Students stroll past in uniforms and backpacks. Commuters with headphones hustle to the renovated train station a block south. Bowed men return from their drug-rehabilitation sessions or mornings spent looking for work. All are unaware that a faint sign of change has emerged. Five vacant lots on the block - four on the west side of Park Avenue, one on the south side of 126th Street - were sold in August for a total of $1.35 million. Real estate brokers attribute the low price to the area's zoning - which restricts property to automotive and heavy commercial uses. Another possible reason is the physical layout: the lots, which cover more than 8,000 square feet, are separated by the two junk-filled yards. And in at least one of those yards, there awaits a durable neighbor. Outside one yard hangs a sign carved with its address. Another faded sign talks about "suburbanites hogging Harlem," the words in capital letters. Tattered shower curtains and splintered wood line the chain-link fence, serving as walls affording some sense of privacy for the man within. A larger board serves as a makeshift door. An old, dilapidated house trailer sits inside, talk radio blaring from it. No one answers a knock on the door. But the occupant is well known. "That's Maruba," said James Smith, 28, smoking a cigarette around the corner outside his apartment building. I've seen him there all my life. There had been a building on the lot before Mr. Maruba took up residence, Mr. Smith said. City records show a demolition application in 1995. After the building came down, Mr. Maruba became a regular presence. The longtime owner of the property, Erling Rohde, whom Mr. Smith remembered as Rudy, was known for lending a hand to down-and-out neighbors. Mr. Rohde, who died in December 2002, once described himself as a "professional bum" and "scavenger," but was also known as a community agitator. He posted politically charged signs on the abandoned buildings that once stood on the block, visible to the Metro-North commuters above. Similarly themed messages remain. And outside the lot where Mr. Maruba lives, at 1844 Park Avenue, flowers in milk crates, some overtaken by weeds, line the chain-link fence. About a dozen feet or so to the north in another lot, a plump dog guards the larger of the two junk-filled yards, along with two other dogs. A giant weed drapes over the fence. City records list the owner of the two lots as the estate of Erling Rohde. The administrator is Mr. Rohde's niece; attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. Mr. Maruba can sometimes be seen watering his plants in daylight hours, Mr. Smith said. But he usually comes out at night, around midnight, to tend to the dogs. He feeds them stewed chicken and brings them inside the trailer when the weather turns cold. "I don't knock it," said Mr. Smith, wearing a tattered sweatshirt, jeans and a scraggly beard. That's his life. He don't want much. A developer, Mr. Smith said he had heard, recently offered Mr. Maruba $80,000 and an apartment to move. He turned it down. Who would take care of his dogs? "As long as the dogs are good," Mr. Smith said, "he'll go anywhere." The seller of the five lots, BNS Real Estate, had hoped that the same economic forces that were remaking 125th Street would eventually extend to this small stretch of Harlem. An earlier version of the caption for the picture at the top of this story incorrectly stated that a lot between 126th and 127th Streets at Park Avenue in Harlem was the makeshift home of a man and it was sold. The yard that he lives in has not been sold and is located near the lots that have been sold.