introduction

“This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.”

                           F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. Willets Point
                           is said to have inspired this passage.

Vultures are circling the men of Willets Point. A $3 billion development of condos, malls, and hotels is slated to rise where a tangle of body shops, salvage lots, and tire warehouses currently stand. While decades of redevelopment plans have been floated and failed for this graceless corner of Queens, the current scheme seems likely to stick. Already, hundreds of businesses have been shuttered. The workers—not always dim and crumbling—seem resigned to their fate.

                              —P.B.