chop shop (2007, Ramin Bahrani)
Willets Point, Queens, an industrial sliver of automotive-repair shops that remains perpetually at risk of being redeveloped off the map. It’s within this precarious ecosystem that twelve-year-old Ale (Alejandro Polanco) must grow up fast, hustling in the neighborhood chop shops to build a more stable life for himself and his sister (Isamar Gonzales), even as their tenuous circumstances force each to compete with other struggling people and make desperate decisions. - CC
I live right down the street from this Citi Field area and, surprisingly, shop owners have resisted complete redevelopment, though continued construction of high rise apts and commercial pillboxes threaten to squeeze them out.