... aka the Iron Triangle. A warren of automotive dismantlers, muffler shops, some light manufacturing, even a distributor of Indian spices! Planes skim their roofs to land in nearby LaGuardia. A stone's throw from the marina. Nuzzling the new Mets stadium. Too valuable a piece of land for such miserable businesses. Our clunkers belong in Ghana. Malls they are American.

"Seven times the city tried to take our land," cries Joe Ardizzone, eighty years old, the sole resident of the district. Even the mighty Robert Moses failed. But Jack Bono, third-generation Bono Saw Dust gave up when the Feds approved the ramps off Van Wyck. Eminent Domain loomed.

Pot holes. Stray dogs. Gray water in them pot holes. Citi Field in the skyline. The reliable markers of a Willets Point story. Scripted in City Hall.

You see Alfonso posing with the axle? I was setting up my 4x5, was fussing behind the dark cloth, when he said "Wait! Wait!" and ran to grab that prop. I can't picture him flipping burgers at the food court in the mall they want to build here. Can you?