The digital thermometer in my rearview mirror said it was down to sixty degrees Fahrenheit as the afternoon surrendered to evening. The dimming streets were busy with the movement of pedestrians – children on bikes, people waiting at bus stops and shambling down the sidewalks. Teenagers congregated at the corners and on the stoops of old houses, many of them probably students (or dropouts) where I worked. Candy wrappers, fast food containers, cigarette butts, and plastic liquor bottles littered the curbs. The fenced-in yards of the run-down houses had patches of unkempt grass and packed dirt.

I turned the corner near a small Catholic church onto a busy street, the sign beckoning in Spanish for parishioners to attend on Sunday at nine in the morning. The neighboring bodega had a large splotch of white paint...

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