Many cities have sought to remake their image when hosting global events like the Olympics. Beijing is polishing off one of the world’s most expensive makeovers with a whitewash. Along the historic central axis of the city that runs from the Yongdingmen Gate due north to the Drum Tower, the authorities are doing their best to give the old city a new face. Beijing has spent $130 million to restore buildings, many of them temples along the five-mile axis, according to the city’s cultural relics bureau.

The Olympic Stadium was built on a northern extension of the traditional axis  a nod to the event’s historic importance. On the wide boulevards leading up to the stadium, roadblocks have been set up and flowers, grass and trees planted.

Image In Beijings quest to rectify the Olympic environment, a brick wall now hides a clutch of small shops run by migrant families. Credit... Doug Kanter for The New York Times

The southern part of the axis has proved more difficult to beautify. It cuts through densely populated neighborhoods south of Tiananmen Square that are home to many of the city’s migrants and working poor. To hide neighborhoods leveled for redevelopment in recent years or anything else the government considers unsightly, officials have put up walls.

Mr. Song and his wife and 8-year-old daughter now live behind one. They have lived here since 1994, Mr. Song said, renting out his shops to families from the provinces.

They live in close quarters. The Songs’ room is barely big enough for a double bed on which the couple and daughter sleep. Two pet birds live in metal cages by the door. The birds, brown starlings with dark feathers and orange beaks, can parrot human speech. Mr. Song taught the birds one of the most famous poems of the Tang Dynasty. Every few minutes, it squawks lines from the poem: “The white sun falls over the mountains” or “The Yellow River flows into the sea.”

Behind the room is a moonscape of weeds and rubble that used to be a slum. Mr. Song’s place survived while the city razed the poor Tianqiao neighborhood and transformed it with shopping malls, wider streets and subdivisions. Mr. Song’s predicament is familiar in the churn of this changing city. The developers want him to go, but he is holding out for more money.