CreditLeslye Davis/The New York Times
PATERSON, N.J. — The combatants agreed to meet in a law office, in one of those ancient brick mills that cast shadows of Paterson’s flourishing past over its hard streets. This beef between up the hill and down the hill had to end, now that another child had died of gunfire. A basketball prodigy. A boy.
Street-smart elders had demanded the meeting, so here came teenagers and young adults from both neighborhoods last Monday night, slouching in the conference room’s red-leather chairs, leaning against a wall featuring a portrait of John Lennon.