With her sad face and plastic tiara, Guissette Muniz looked like a 6-year-old princess surveying a kingdom in ruins. Empty lots, cracked sidewalks and dirty streets surrounded her. A car, flattened like a beer can, sat across the street. Not another soul was visible that Halloween Day in 1991.

She was indeed scared  but not because of the landscape outside her grandmother’s house.

“My uncle was inside wearing a Chucky mask,” she recalled this week. “The shoes, the mask, the whole outfit. He was walking around with it, and I was really frightened.”

Ángel Franco, a New York Times photographer, had encountered her on the way to a Halloween party in Bronx Park South. The image, of innocence amid desolation, was haunting. Ms. Muniz, now 24 and living a short walk from where she stood that day, cherishes the childhood memory.

“It brings a lot of smiles to my face,” she said. “I can’t believe one picture can make such a big impact. I show it to my friends. I hold it close to my heart.”