Home for me is Brooklyn, New York, at the terminus of a once busy industrial waterway known as the Gowanus Canal. I have lived on the canal for eight years in a drafty loft that is chilly in the winter, stifling in the summer and leaky when it rains. As I cross over the canal today, I am no longer cautioned by flashing lights or forestalled by dropping gates. The bridge deck no longer cantilevers up and gapes open as the oil barge clears beneath. The large, brown and black dog guarding the depot is gone. Grass and weeds have grown taller along the walls of the canal, around the edges of old warehouses and up through the cracks in the sidewalks as the last vestige of industrial commerce has slowed to a halt. Over the years, as the cement crumbled and the asphalt cracked, nature has reclaimed space to sprawl and spread its unkempt way around the neighborhood. In the decay of this old industry-based neighborhood green things still exist with an unruliness that reflects nature along more urban lines.