Harlem teen, 15, killed near the King Towers center where he recorded music

A 15-year-old who spent his Wednesday evenings in the recording studio at his neighborhood community center was shot and killed around 6:20 p.m. that day, about half a block from the center, at Lenox Avenue and West 115th Street in Harlem, according to the NYPD.

Officers went to the corner after a ShotSpotter alert picked up gunfire. The teen had been hit in the stomach. He was rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital and did not survive. A second victim, a man of 57, was hit in his right hand and was listed in stable condition. On Thursday, police officials said another teenager was being questioned about the shooting. No one had been officially arrested.

King Towers community center mourns a regular

The boy’s center is the Cornerstone site inside King Towers, the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers public housing complex. Its director, Iesha Lewis, said he liked coming in, especially to use the studio. She remembered him as a “wonderful young man” who looked out for his little sisters.

A group of teens lit candles for him outside his building. “This affects everybody,” said Lakeba Reece, a neighbor. Jessie Pacheco, who lives at the complex, said her 17-year-old son was the boy’s friend and that she would rather keep him upstairs than out on the street.

Calls for stipends and less scaffolding at the NYCHA complex

The city has Cornerstone Centers inside 100 NYCHA developments, offering year-round programs for both adults and young people. At King Towers, the center is run by SCAN-Harbor, a nonprofit focused on stopping gun violence in the Bronx and Harlem.

Lewis said the center’s strong after-school program makes the violence even harder to make sense of. “It’s beyond programming,” she said. “We’re getting murdered year after year here.” She wants the city to find ways to put money in teens’ pockets, with more stipends and opportunities that go further than Summer Youth, the city program that places teens in summer jobs.

Scaffolding is another problem, Lewis said. It covers many walkways and entrances across the complex, making it hard to see who comes and goes. “Environment is everything,” she said. NYCHA did not immediately answer questions about the scaffolding or about safety at the complex.