Mason Yeoh - The Valley of Ashes

"About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is the 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" (Page 20).

"The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute, and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress" (Page 20).

“We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserved saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us. And I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by” (Page 53).

"Wilson’s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small gray clouds took on fantastic shapes and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind" (Page 122).

“[W]e sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easy-going blue coupe" (Page 96).

The Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby is supposed to be a depressing industrial area in Queens that is in between the West Egg and Manhattan. During the 1920s, this area around Willets Point was barren land that was a dumping ground for ashes and soot from factories in the vicinity. The ashes were the byproduct of industrial furnaces from the smokestacks nearby in the neighborhoods of Flushing and Corona. Willets Point is located next to the Flushing River and has also contained junkyards of rusted scrap metal, mostly from vehicles at the end of their useful lives. During the 1920s, Flushing and Corona were not residential neighborhoods, but they were centers of traditional smokestack industrial manufacturing, including the manufacture of steel, industrial machinery, and shipbuilding. Willets Point is aptly described by Nick as a "desolate area of land" in the quote from Page 20.

The modern day Willets Point exists as though time has stood still. It is still beside a "small foul river" with a steel drawbridge that connects Corona to Flushing. Both Corona and Flushing are now immigrant communities, with Corona with predominantly Latin American residents, while Flushing has a predominantly Asian population. Directly beside Willets Point is Citi Field, the stadium of the New York Mets, and Citi Field is an enclave of sports and commerce that looks drastically different from the automobile junkyards and auto repair shops of Willets Point. I drove through Willets Point. I saw a lot of auto repair shops but did not see the junkyards because they are hidden behind the auto shops. The main road is called Roosevelt Avenue. Although, this may not look like the most desirable place to live to some, one gets the sense that it has a tight-knit community. It has wonderful food that cannot be found elsewhere in New York. However, one should know exactly where one is going. In The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan knew where he was going when he got off the train. He also knew people who lived there. The same would hold true today. The realities of this neighborhood does not veer far from the book. However, quite honestly, I do not know this neighborhood well enough to discover all of its little gems or the people who live there. I did not have the confidence of Tom Buchanan. I felt more like Nick Carraway, cautious of my surroundings.

I have actually visited Corona before. The Louis Armstrong House Museum is located at 34-56 107th Street and it is wonderful. I was drawn to the Louis Armstrong House by my fascination for jazz. www.louisarmstronghouse.org The Roaring Twenties was also known as "The Jazz Age." This house was purchased by Louis Armstrong's wife, Lucile Wilson, because she had family nearby. It is like walking into a time capsule, left exactly the way it was when Louis Armstrong lived there, with the same kitchen and same furniture. During the tour of the house, the guide plays recordings of Louis Armstrong's voice, as though Mr. Armstrong is providing the guide. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the house, so the photos I uploaded are not mine. The tour ends at the backyard, which has one of the most beautiful gardens in New York. It is truly a magical garden and is very unexpected. I played my trumpet of the Louis Armstrong son, "What a Wonderful World." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqhCQZaH4Vs Louis and Lucile Armstrong were not able to have children of their own, so they embraced the children of the neighborhood. Photos of the Louis Armstrong House are in the image carousel below.

The Covid pandemic has exacted the potent combination of health and economic risks on this neighborhood, and it is clear that its residents are among the most economically vulnerable to adversities, such as pandemics and economic recession.

The Valley of Ashes contrasts the beauty surroundings described on the Gold Coast of Long Island with the landscape of the environment in which most other New Yorkers live. It shows how disconnected the wealthy are from the level of their wealth, and the struggles and challenges which typical Americans face.