Word: islanders
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...many ways, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Coney Island has fallen long and hard from its apex in the early 20th century, when its grandiose rides and spectacles--it once featured a Lilliputian village populated with 300 midgets--were a must-see, even for A-list tourists like Charles Lindbergh and Sigmund Freud, who supposedly declared Coney Island the only part of America that interested him. In the decades that followed, TV and air travel provided other options for escape, as parts of the neighborhood were razed for public housing. Revival-minded artists have partly displaced...
Joseph Sitt, the Brooklyn-born developer whose company paid $150 million for 10 acres of central Coney Island, wants to restore the splendor. His plan includes an indoor water park, two hotels and a roller coaster that wraps in and out of buildings. That a large investor has come to the neighborhood is a vindication of the city's strategy to spark private interest by plowing municipal money into improvements such as a minor-league baseball stadium. Coney Island fixture Dick Zigun, who has brought back old traditions like the circus sideshow and invented new ones like the Mermaid Parade...
...unease is in the air. Sitt has also included a 40-story residential building in his plans. He says amusements aren't profitable on their own, but locals fear that housing in the amusement district would water down Coney Island's noisy eccentricity. The Cyclone and Wonder Wheel are national landmarks, but Sitt's company now plays landlord to most of the rest of Coney Island's rides. The locals are particularly concerned, since some of Sitt's actions-- he demolished go-karts and batting cages this winter, long before he could start building anything to replace them--evoke...
...Sitt, who lived within walking distance of Coney Island as a child, insists he'll make the place vibrant again and is even considering ways to build his complex without housing. "This is one of the most important pieces of American history," he says. And his critics seem willing to drop their opposition if he drops housing. "Joe Sitt can still be a hero," says local historian Charles Denson. "He could go down in history as someone who saved Coney Island." But at this point, that's conjecture. The only certain thing is that if you love the old Coney...
Democratic Senators have suggested that Gonzales may have been trying to coach Goodling ahead of Congressional inquiries into the matter. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said the conversation had the whiff of obstruction of justice. Leahy and Specter wrote Fine on June 5 to ask whether the Goodling conversation was, in fact, part of the Inspector General's investigation. Fine, together with the head of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, responded in a letter Wednesday, which dryly said, "This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter...