Until the age of 17, he was thin, but then he and his first serious boyfriend hit an ugly stretch of road.

Route 5 in Wallingford is a truly ugly stretch of commercial road, the value of which until now has largely relied on being able to test drive some of the sexiest cars in America.

Just below the shallows an ugly stretch of rapids began.

The restaurant occupies a sometimes desolate, windy ("vent" means wind in French) and ugly stretch of 42nd Street, and its interior is no more blessed.

The radio station never faded out, though Zach thought he drove fifty miles or more, past bland green vistas and ugly stretches of consumerland, K-marts and QuikStops and fast-food charnelhouses shut down against the night.

The visual payoff is a vivid evocation of the ugliest stretches of Queens, from a sprawling auto-body shop near Shea Stadium to a banal stretch of Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst.

Once an ugly and unbroken stretch of swamp and garbage, the Meadowlands now competes with New York City as an employer, providing jobs for about 90,000 people.

This is an ugly stretch of road, with all these disbanded soldiers turned loose.

From here, it's an hour south, either on the A7 Autoroute or the old N7 National road, two of the ugliest stretches of highway in Europe.

The Mets have endured an ugly stretch, from the disclosure that shortstop Rey Sanchez was having his hair cut during a game last week to Piazza's shock at learning of the team's plans from reporters.