We missed the Lola Staar party in Coney Island on Sunday because we were busy in Williamsburg and we couldn’t be two places at one time. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad decision. As it turns out, developer Joe Sitt decided to make an appearance at the Staar party, which took place at Ruby’s on the boardwalk. The Village Voice’s Neil deMause filed this report on the Voice blog Runnin’ Scared:
…the Coney old guard gathered at Ruby’s venerable (and venerated) boardwalk restaurant for a celebration: Dianna Carlin’s Lola Staar Boutique, given up for dead after Sitt refused to extend her lease after a squabble over that same gag order, had reopened, once again making the boardwalk safe for Cyclone baby tees and mermaid floaty pens. Sitt, explains Carlin, had called her the day before the “Save Coney Island” rally she organized at City Hall last month, and after an hour-long phone chat, ultimately agreed to extend her stay through October for “very little money”; Carlin didn’t sign a confidentiality clause, she stresses, and plans to continue to speak out against Thor’s condo plans.
The party featured a hot pink cake and the guitar stylings of Polar Bear Club troubadour Amos Wengler (his “Lola Staar Is Back,” with its singalong chorus of “Don’t mess with Lola/She’s gonna react,” was a particular hit). But all were upstaged when in walked Joe Sitt himself, dressed in shades and a polo shirt. As onlookers goggled, the developer grabbed a plate of sausage and onions, and greeted his erstwhile adversary Carlin like an old friend.
While Sitt wouldn’t comment on the record—he spent much of his time at Ruby’s ducking the videographers who dogged his every step—his Thor associate Digna Rodriguez-Poulton hinted that the fenced-in tire-strewn wasteland that currently occupies much of Thor’s Coney holdings wouldn’t remain that way all summer, with a circus a possibility in July or August.
Given the remarks passed around at the Ruby’s bar, Sitt still has a long way to go to win over a skeptical Coney populace. (“You’re Joe Sitt?” one patron gasped on meeting him. “You don’t have horns!”) Even Carlin, who once again seems hopeful about the future, with a sitdown scheduled with Sitt for next week to discuss his plans, isn’t deluding herself that all is now copacetic: “It’s all about bargaining tactics, and if that doesn’t work, he could be back to evicting us all in a few months.”
It gets curiouser and curiouser.
[Photo courtesy Runnin’ Scared/Village Voice]
GLmigration 