The sign on the chain-link fence warns "No Trespassing," and a passer-by walking through this industrial Brooklyn neighborhood wouldn't think there was much to see beyond the barbed wire circling the lot, other than stacks of rust-colored shipping crates piled four high.

But behind them lies the site of one of HBO's most ambitious series since "The Sopranos." What was once a parking lot has been turned into a miniature Hollywood backlot: a 300-foot-long replica of the Atlantic City boardwalk circa 1920, which functions as the main set for the network's new drama "Boardwalk Empire."

The series, which traces the rise of corrupt quasi-fictional politician Nucky Thompson, comes with an impressive pedigree: Martin Scorsese serves as executive producer and directed the pilot. The show was created by Terence Winter, a "Sopranos" writer who recruited much of the crew from that program to join him, and stars Steve Buscemi as Thompson.

Though HBO executives say they don't expect to ever be able to duplicate the success of "The Sopranos," they have high hopes that "Boardwalk Empire" -- along with "Big Love," "True Blood" and David Simon's upcoming New Orleans drama "Treme" -- can re-establish the network's place in the zeitgeist. Although the series is set nearly a century ago, Winter said he believes viewers will be captivated by the frenetic energy of the Roaring Twenties, a time of loosening public mores, and see parallels between bootlegging and the modern-day drug trade.

The elaborate set, which took three months to build, matches the scope of the project: sherbet-hued shops peddling palm readings, postcards and saltwater taffy line a 45-foot-wide boardwalk ringed with trucked-in sand. There's even a "Baby Incubator" building, modeled after a real baby hospital where tourists on the boardwalk gawked at underweight infants.

The row of shops is not an exact duplication of the real boardwalk, but an amalgam of 1920s-era edifices of Atlantic City. Little remains from that era in the scruffy New Jersey beach town, which forced producers to hunt for a location that would be true to the period. After scouting Asbury Park, N.J., and Coney Island, they decided it would be easier to create their own boardwalk from scratch. (A 35 percent production tax credit for filming in New York didn't hurt, either.)

The series, which is expected to debut next fall, opens with the start of Prohibition in 1920 and explores the rise of Thompson, the city's canny treasurer and local don, whose reach is furthered after he taps into the lucrative rum-smuggling trade. The character is based on Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, a Republican political boss who controlled Atlantic City for three decades.

Thompson is "very charming, smart, shrewd, a master politician -- equal parts politician and gangster," said Winter, watching from a distance as Buscemi stood in a camel's hair coat in the middle of the boardwalk, shooting a scene for the second episode.

Winter, one of the show's executive producers, developed the concept out of the book "Boardwalk Empire," a nonfiction history of Atlantic City written by Nelson Johnson. He contemplated setting the drama in the 1950s, "but that started to feel a little too close to 'The Sopranos' again."

Johnson provided him with plenty of material. Flush with kickbacks, he lived in the Ritz-Carlton and rubbed elbows with rising gangsters such as "Lucky" Luciano and Al Capone.

Although Thompson is a fictional version of the real power-broker Johnson, producers are striving to create a milieu true to the actual era, much as another "Sopranos" alum, Matthew Weiner, has done with the AMC series "Mad Men."

The arc of the 12-episode series will run from the dawn of Prohibition through the 1920 presidential election, delving into the suffrage movement. Ultimately, Winter hopes the drama will be picked up long enough for him to weave the narrative of the entire decade, ending with the crash of 1929. The Atlantic City boardwalk grew even more colorful during that period, he noted, acquiring acts like diving horses in 1928.

TV columnist Rob Owen's Tuned In+ is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.