None of those vacant lots were
always vacant lots. Without exception, there was
something there that has since been demolished for one reason or another. The "Sub Shack" sign was still the Sub Shack in the early nineties, I ate there a few times before it closed. Before the sandwich shop, there were houses on that block:
http://sacramento.pastperfect-online...50240056-1.JPG
The row of shops with the second-story bay windows were painted brown when I first moved downtown--there was a neighborhood bar, the Blue Ribbon, in one of the retail spaces, and a couple of secondhand stores.
12th and I Street used to be a Trailways station--it was built a half-block from the old union stations for electric trains you could take to Chico or Oakland (or directly to San Francisco!) until 1941. After the trains stopped it was the "Food Depot," and Jim-Denny's was open 24 hours for Trailways riders and drivers.
Total agreement about 12th and J--my wife always likes to point out that corner as a horrible place for a two-story parking structure.
Alkali Flat became the home of much of Sacramento's Mexican barrio after redevelopment in the 1950s, and it still bears the legacy of the Royal Chicano Air Force, a very well-known art group who had their gallery and bookstore at 1228 F Street (I think it's one of those vacant lots now...)--today their gallery is at 22nd and K.
But there are new galleries reopening in Alkali Flat/Mansion Flat:
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headl..._Mansion_Flats