A tree grows in Brooklyn, a rose grows in Spanish Harlem, a developer follows with seven-figure condos — are there any forces in New York more eternally indestructible than nature and gentrification? The photographer Miska Draskoczy became fascinated with this cycle of destruction and rebirth after moving near the Gowanus Canal in 2008, two years before the canal was named a Superfund site, requiring $506 million to clean up. Wandering the neighborhood at night, when the streets emptied of people, he found life abounding: green plants pushing up through broken pavement, vines reclaiming graffiti-marked walls, trees throwing bucolic shade over drive-by garbage heaps. One night, pushing through dense foliage at the dead end of Huntington Street, he spied a snowy egret perched on a branch, staring out over a motionless canal.

Mr. Draskoczy, 39, who grew up in the Adirondacks — “a big hiker, rock climber and ice climber” — approached the neighborhood as a naturalist. “There’s no real wilderness anymore,” he said. “I’m interested in the idea that everywhere we are, it’s some hybrid of nature and the man-made. What’s the meaning of wilderness in this new context?”

The photos here are part of an exhibition called “Gowanus Wild,” which will be at the Brooklyn Public Library until Sept. 25. Already they are documents of a vanishing world. Since Mr. Draskoczy started shooting in 2012, most of the sites he photographed have been torn down or swept away for new development, he said. Once-empty streets now bustle with baby strollers and bar patrons. But the other night he ventured down to the end of Huntington Street, where he had photographed the egret. The tree was still there, and in it, on the same branch, was an egret. See it while you can. Development never sleeps.