Down in the Hole
Sunken beneath the level of the surrounding streets, this sparsely populated, frequently flooded hinterland hard by the Brooklyn-Queens border (here's an aerial view) is apparently known as "the Hole" by its residents. A 2004 NY Times article said it has "all the characteristics of a frontier town in the Old West." That's something of an overstatement, although, to be fair, there were still some horses stabled here at the time. Personally, I think the area has more of a swampy, down-by-the-bayou kind of feel. The aforementioned horses were evicted to make way for the construction of a gated community to be known as "Cobblestone Estates". Not surprisingly, this half-baked plan seems to have permanently stalled: for the past several years, the development has consisted of little more than three dozen concrete foundations and the mound (mountain?) of excavated rubble you see above. If you're so inclined, you can take a nice photographic tour of the neighborhood here, and check out some great video footage here.