"The limitations of genteel culture as an approach to a sprawling urban-industrial democracy appeared exposed as never before." Urban-industrial democracy in no way appears to be a poetic notion. The sound of it alone is enough to conjure images of giant steel entrapments and clouds of questionable haze. Yet both Lorca and Gorky find a way to express this sprawling in poetic form, even if it's not flattering poetry. It's poetic in its paradoxial nature; how it represents the worst aspects of a people and place that should be only positive. The ideals behind Coney Island are most exemplary; a place built upon the changing face of entertainment and diversity. A place intended to welcome the underrepresented, "all eager to respond to amusement in a less earnest cultural mood..." But somehow Coney Island appears to so many as near to Dante's tenth circle of hell, a black hole of morality. But is one realy surprised at the subversive culture behind Coney after examining the Victorian codes of conduct it had to break through in order to thrive? The country was looking for a way to experience entertainment in all its folly. It's a story of extremes but would Coney Island be half the wonder it is if it weren't a walking contradiction of happiness? Would we be writing about it now if it didn't appeal to all those stuck in the belief that "life is made for the people to work six days in the week, sin on the seventh, and pay for their sins, confess their sins, and pay for the confession"?