The area -- in between Williamsburg, Bushwick and Maspeth -- is a faded industrial Nowhere now home to yards full of buses, trucks and equipment. The creek zigzags right through it and, in spite of some marine activity (tugs still push barges to a tanker truck depot far up the creek), compounds the impression of a torn landscape.
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Above, a Google map and satellite image of the area; the photos below were taken near the spots marked 1 and 2. (Note coffee tree also seen near 1.)
Near map mark 1: to the left, a mysterious, empty cage -- big enough for whatever Swamp Thing the creek produces -- and the stylish bridge house above it. Just below, an oil depot across from a Waste Management plant; the creek continues past the barge toward its leftmost dead end on the map.
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Near map mark 2: above left, the work crew let me walk across the closed Grand Street Bridge and, sure enough, offered to sell it to me; on the right, what Nowhere looks like. Below left, the kind of cranes you see on this creek. Note how the buses below right show up in the satellite photo up top.
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Bonus multimedia below: note pained, resigned face in landscape I've outlined on the left, and that Google Maps Street View, pictured on the right, manages to make the area look even worse than I have.
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