problem with creating the wp-content/uploads file

I’ve run into a problem that others have posted about for many years it seems, but even reading through past posts I can’t seem to resolve it. I have wp 3.5.1 installed on my mac, and am using MAMP Pro to create a local server. Everything is up and running fine (themes are there, I can make changes via the dashboard) though now I go to upload media or upload a widget, and I am told that WP is unable to create the uploads folder in wp-content directory. So I have gone through the trouble-shooting files and tried what I found there.

Apparently this version of WP doesn’t have a Settings->miscellaneous option, so I wasn’t able to do what was prescribed with that. I have, however, checked and unchecked the Organize uploads into month and year directories under Setting->Media with no luck. I have changed the permissions on the wp-directories using the Get Info command on my Mac to read and write for all possible users and possible configurations of different users, with no luck. I have tried using the chmod in the terminal and changing permissions to 777 (which I understand does the same thing as going through the get info screen), but haven’t had a lot of luck with that–the command prompt tells me it can’t find the file (though I have tried the entire string and parts of it: applications/mamp/htdocs/bmnt [the directory where I put wordpress]/wp-content).

So, could anybody help me out here. It seems odd that this problem has come up so often but it doesn’t seem to be sort out. Thank you. Matt