 From 1998 to 2006 , Booker lived in Brick Towers , a troubled housing complex in Newark 's Central Ward . In November 2006 , as one of the last remaining tenants in Brick Towers , Booker left his apartment for the top unit in a three @-@ story rental on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark 's South Ward , an area described as " a <unk> and gang @-@ plagued neighborhood of boarded @-@ up houses and empty lots " . Brick Towers has since been demolished , and a new mixed @-@ income development was built there in 2010 . 
