It’s tempting to see Sitt as a kind of Coney Island Bugsy Siegel (sans the wiseguy ties), the notorious gangster who reimagined a grubby little town in the Nevada desert as the gambling mecca of the United States. “I feel like him,” Sitt says. “Bugsy Siegel went into a town and there were a couple of small gambling casinos. His dream was to take the inspiration from what was there before and magnify it. Give it more variety. Give it choices . . . That’s exactly the turnaround opportunity that we see here in Coney Island!”

Sitt starts jabbing at the air again. “People said I was nuts for opening upscale stores in the middle of some of the toughest African-American neighborhoods in the United States,” he practically yells. “You know what? They were wrong.”

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Greg Sargent
• Table of Contents: Sep 26, 2005 issue of New York | Subscribe!