This child is as exceptional as Paul Cuffe was.

In the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, there is a modest street called Faile Street. Its name is not a lie.

Its painted women sell themselves at the bodega on the corner. Its ragged men sell bags of dope from cars along the curb. It passes underneath the ruckus of the elevated highway and then dead-ends in the stench of a sewage treatment plant. Faile Street is poor. It is loud. It is often dangerous. Often, it smells.

Jenise Harrell was born and raised on Faile Street, but hers, it could be said, is a story of success. At 16, Jenise, a junior, gets solid B's at Cardinal Spellman High School. She serves on the student council. She writes for the student paper. She debates for the debate team. She works reshelving books in the library during lunch.

Her afternoons are spent at a community center, her weekends at her church.

She is trying for a future at Howard University or Duke or Stanford -- maybe even Harvard. She is trying to escape.

"I know I have it in me to get out," she says. "I have to get out. There's nothing for me here."