Third and Indiana is a novel written by Steve Lopez about the experiences of several people connected to 14-year-old Gabriel Santoro, while living in the dangerous gang-controlled streets of the Badlands section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The novel gave notoriety to Third Street and Indiana Avenue, a real-life intersection in the Fairhill area known for the prevalence of drug dealers. The first printing had 50,000 copies printed. Published in 1994, it was Lopez's first novel. Development Steve Lopez arrived in Philadelphia in the mid-1980s. Lopez said that he began considering writing a novel because "what I saw in the neighborhood that I found so shocking and so unlike what I had seen in my years of reporting in other cities. There were just so many compelling images that I would walk away with every time I went into the neighborhood." Lopez said that the novel was, as paraphrased by Douglas J. Keating of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "essentially the story of a parent in search of a child in danger." Lopez said that his book mainly focused on "adult relationships". Characters Gabriel Santoro - Gabriel, the protagonist, is a 14-year old boy who runs away from home and deals drugs on the street. Ultimately Gabriel is good at heart, and hopes to pull away from a life of drugs and violence. In the novel Gabriel is half-Latino, half-European White. His mother, Ofelia, is half-Dominican and half-Canadian. His father, Ruben, was Cuban and Italian. In the play Gabriel was portrayed by Gueshill Gilman Wharwood, an African-American actor, and a fourth year student (senior) at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). Carl Sessions Stepp, the senior editor of the American Journalism Review, wrote in a 1994 review that "Gabriel is a compelling and heartbreaking character, a talented artist abandoned by his father and overwhelmed by circumstances, yet prodigiously mature in certain ways." Brian O'Neill of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that he as a reviewer cared about Gabriel, the character. Ben Yagoda of The New York Times said that Gabriel "is depicted as honorable, steadfast and true -- and a prodigiously talented artist to boot." Yagoda asked "[w]hy would such a boy be willing to pocket the grocery money of teen-age mothers in exchange for crack?" Bob Nocek of Times Leader said that Wharwood "handled dutifully" making Gabriel a sympathetic character. Ofelia Santoro - Ofelia, Gabriel's mother, frantically looks for Gabriel.