"A 1978 Federal Report described the Meadowlands as a swampy mosquito-infested jungle ... where rusting auto bodies, demolition rubble, industrial oil slicks and cattails merge in unholy, stinking union. But one mans trash is another mans treasure, and with incomparable wit and enthusiasm, Robert Sullivan reinterprets the reputation and legacy of an area considered by many to be one of the most disgusting in the country. He travels by canoe, bus, car, and foot to tour cities and swamplands and interview mayors, dump owners, and renegade mosquito-control officers. He describes the hideous pollution and the hidden natural wonders, the seedy motels and labyrinth highways, the local population and the indigenous, ubiquitous mosquitoes. But Sullivan learns that, in fact, many things have been left behind here - from garbage and treasure to the remains of crazy development schemes of generations past. Armed with pickax, shovel and metal detector, he bravely sets out to find the two things believed to be dumped in the Meadowlands that particularly obsess him - the elusive corpse of famed labor leader Jimmy Hoffa and Manhattan's once-glorious original Penn Station."--BOOK JACKET.