From today's New York Times article on Suzanne Vega:

TWENTY years have passed since a 27-year-old waif with wide-set blue eyes made it big with her guitar and a song about domestic child abuse. The song was “Luka,” and it was inspired by a streetwise boy whom Suzanne Vega had seen playing with other children on West 23rd Street, where she then lived, half a block from the Chelsea Hotel.