Astoria is Gatsby Country

I just finished rereading The Great Gatsby and discovered that Astoria, home of Fort Eddy, is in Gatsby country. In fact much of the action of the book consists of the characters flitting between East and West Eggs and Manhattan, always passing through Astoria. In this passage, where Nick and Gatsby are cruising in Gatsby's soon-to-be-notorious yellow convertible on their way downtown for a lunch with the gangster Wolfsheim, Astoria is mentioned specifically:

With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half
Astoria--only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the
elevated I heard the familiar "jug--jug--SPAT!" of a motor cycle, and a
frantic policeman rode alongside.

"All right, old sport," called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white
card from his wallet he waved it before the man's eyes.

"Right you are," agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. "Know you next
time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!"

A few moments later they are crossing the Queensboro Bridge, in the southern end of Astoria, and Nick waxes poetic about the view:

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a
constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the
river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of
non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always
the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the
mystery and the beauty in the world.

Much later in the novel Nick finds himself, oddly, in Gatsby's car, but being driven by Tom Buchanan, in the exact same locale:

Instinct made him step on the accelerator with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind, and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easygoing blue coupé.

After a disastrous afternoon at the Plaza Hotel, Daisy and Gatsby leave in his car and, after passing through Astoria again, Daisy runs down Tom's lover and seals Gatsby's fate.

Presumably they drive back and forth on the Northern Road, which swings not too far from the Fort's precincts.