The Boston Globe – “68 Blocks: Life, Death, Hope”

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
For Bostonians, Bowdoin-Geneva is a famous address for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes the people who live here seem like the only ones who have not given up on it. Numbing reminders of tragedy are interlaced with stubborn hopes, born, dashed and born again.
Police investigators looked at evidence at the scene of the shooting where a man was shot multiple times at Winter and Adams streets in Allen Park on Aug. 17.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Angela Fomby cries during the sentencing of Joshua Fernandes and Chrisostomo Lopes for the first degree murder of her 14 year old nephew Nicholas Fomby-Davis. He was shot and killed in the neighborhood in 2010.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Jason Grant, a city employee, boards up the front door of the yellow house on Hendry Street, a source of many complaints, after the city vacated it over a host of code violations.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Father “Doc” Conway of St. Peter Church, high-fived a man on Homes Avenue who identified himself as a member of the Latin Kings gang and calls himself King Rome 360. Conway makes it a point to traverse every street in the neighborhood during his walk twice a week to reach out to the residents and help any way he can.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
An abandoned home where squatters lived on Olney St. with the words “Nothing 2 Steal” painted on a wooden board in the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Outreach worker for the Bowdoin Street Health Center Susan Young embraced Antonio Walker as she leaves him in his new apartment after helping him go grocery shopping. Walker had been homeless until Young helped him find a place to live.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Theresa Johnson’s life is a whirl, from the home that is the center of family life to the job she cherishes as a school secretary to the struggle to keep her sons safe. Johnson talked on the phone while her daughter, Ceecee, fixed the hair of her granddaughter Trinity.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
The community garden on Coleman Street was built in the 1990s, a time of optimism in the neighborhood. Friends Kaori Tate, 10, left, and Ghiyahna Ennis, 11, share a plot in the garden. They help other gardeners and water for them when their plots look dry. On this June night, the garden was full of people, many of them planting vegetables.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Activists has worked tirelessly to improve the look of Coleman Street. Volunteer Donald Aaron spreads greenery beyond the community garden’s fence.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Oslin “Coach Jack” Mayhew shows off his soccer-ball-handling skills on the first day of the weekly Bowdoin-Geneva Farmers Market in June.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Marlene Texeira of Dorchester and parishioners from St. Peter Parish followed the Stations of the Cross ritual on Good Friday in the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood. Each of the 14 stops marked the location of a victim of a stabbing or shooting.

 

68 blocks: Life, death, hope
Trinity Dale-Johnson, granddaughter of Theresa Johnson, looked out to the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood from Johnson’s home on June 13. Johnson worries about her children constantly, calling them whenever she hears sirens. It’s only when they’re home that she feels they are safe.