There’s a place in New York City where the streets have gemstone names but run through a wasteland.

Known locally as“The Hole,” in these five square blocks, irregularly divided between Brooklyn and Queens, the dignity of the residents is challenged daily by environmental and sanitary degradation: rotting carcasses of cars and trucks, caravans half-hidden in the reeds, boats in the tall grass, empty streets, a metallic clanking from junkyards, and the roar of aircraft engines from nearby JFK. Many similar stories intertwine in this lost frontier a stone's throw from the world's most economic center. Tough stories that nevertheless found the strength to move forward, to find balance, to lead a decent life, to somehow prevail over the hardships inflicted on them by an adverse fate.