Wally Mathis’ home of 10 years sits on Ellis Street in the next block from where Antonio was slain.
His friends Santiago and West didn’t have the means to buy a car themselves, Mathis said, so he and Frank Van Delinde bought a used Buick together and sold it to them on time.
“They paid every week, never missed a payment, until they paid it off,’’ Mathis said.
Ellis Street has become the thoroughfare between public housing to the west and Dixville to east.
Mathis said that he hears people going by at all hours, there have been break-ins, some unreported and sometimes he hears shots in the night.
But it was the shots at 9:15 Thursday morning in broad daylight that changed so much.
“I can’t fathom it, shooting a baby in a stroller, asleep,’’ he said.
But people adjust. They’re out walking Union Street again, riding their bicycles and sitting on their porches, but one scene will be missing.
“Most every day, you’d see her out strolling the baby,’’ Mathis said of West.
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