The Valley of Ashes is a location in F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel "The Great Gatsby" that represents the dark side of American society in the 1920s. It is a depressing industrial area of Queens that lies between West Egg and Manhattan, next to both the train tracks and the road that runs from West Egg to Manhattan. The area is also next to a small river and its drawbridge, where the products of the factories are shipped to their destinations. The valley is described as 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. The valley is mentioned in several chapters of the novel, including Chapter 2, where Nick describes what this place is like at length before he goes there to meet Toms mistress Myrtle, and Chapter 4, where its the place Gatsby can flash his mysterious get-out-of-a-ticket-free card at a cop and also ask Nick to set him up with Daisy. The valley of ashes is a symbol of the moral decay and corruption that underlie the glittering surface of the wealthy society depicted in the novel.