Living and dying on these Jersey streets

On a New Jersey Block, a Second Bright Student Is Mourned By FERNANDA SANTOS and NATE SCHWEBER


IRVINGTON, N.J. — Dolores Timmons watched as the woman who lived across the street paced the sidewalk for a good half hour under a scorching August heat, back and forth across the length of her front yard as if encased by invisible walls. They lived in similar brick and wood-frame homes here on a busy working-class block of 18th Avenue off the Garden State Parkway, but they had never spoken.

Another neighbor told Mrs. Timmons that the woman, Shalga Hightower, was mourning her 20-year-old daughter, one of three college students who had been shot dead in a Newark schoolyard a few days earlier. Mrs. Timmons walked across the street to introduce herself and offer condolences, bringing her grandson, Gary Farrar Jr., who was just a year older and also in college, studying graphic design at Rutgers.
Soon the two women struck up a neighborly acquaintanceship, making small talk when they ran into each other or waving from their stoops.
Mrs. Timmons, 64, had lived on the block for 24 years, and she occupied the first floor of her two-family house; upstairs were Gary and his parents, Gary Sr., a landscaper, and Betty Farrar, a nurse. Ms. Hightower, 47, a home-health aide supervisor, moved there last June with her three children; Iofemi, the oldest, was about to enter Delaware State University when she was killed.

Iofemi Hightower and Gary Farrar Jr., lived on the same street. Hightower was to enroll in Delaware State – oldest of three children.Shot and killed August, 2007 by strangers while chilling in a schoolyard with friends. Farrar, an only child, graduated from Rutgers. Shot and killed April 20, 2008 – in a driveby on his street (by a stranger) while walking friends to their car.

As the months passed, Mrs. Timmons noticed how Ms. Hightower would often wear a memorial T-shirt stamped with her daughter’s picture.
“When Iofemi died, I remember thinking how fortunate I was that my grandson was in college, away from these crazy streets out here,” Mrs. Timmons said on Monday. “But then he graduated and came back home and now he’s dead, too.”

For the families who live on this hilly stretch of 18th Avenue between Grove Street and Eastern Parkway, where Irvington juts into Newark, Ms. Hightower’s killing last summer — six suspects have been arrested — brought the violence that surrounds them frighteningly close. Losing Mr. Farrar barely nine months later —just four months after he had graduated from Rutgers and returned home — was something beyond.

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“We made our sacrifices and just raised our son the best way that we could,” Mr. Farrar said on Monday.

Iofemi Hightower worked for Continental Airlines in Newark and planned to study business at Delaware State. Mr. Farrar had a degree in graphic design from Rutgers and was a waiter in Montclair as he pursued a job in his field. They were, by all accounts, exceptions — “good kids who stayed out of trouble and had hopes and dreams for the future,” as Mrs. Timmons put it.

Mr. Farrar, she said, recently bought a navy three-button suit to wear on job interviews. Now, she said, his parents plan to bury him in it.

Read The New York Times for the rest of this heartbreaking story


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2 responses to “Living and dying on these Jersey streets”

  1. Charisse Avatar
    Charisse

    Gun control! Gun Control! Hillary is too beholden to lobbyists, including gun lobbyists — Obama is our best shot (no pun intended). RIP Iofemi and Gary.

  2. Stephanie Smith Avatar
    Stephanie Smith

    This violence is just senseless, I knew Gary personally and he was the sweetest most sincere young man anyone could want to meet. I have a son of my own now and I would be grateful if my son turns out to be the kind of youg man taht Gary was. Our young people have got to stop dying like this. These legislators, and public officials have got to do something about these drugs and guns in our coommunities . i am insensed at the police sargents state of disalarm over the recent amount of killings. I bet if it was his child or famil member he would be alarmed, but alas it just more black on black crime. who cares about that. Obviously our lives are insignifigant to him.

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