While poking around online (actually trying to confirm the spelling of Buttner’s, an old department store on Nantucket) I came across this New York Times article from 1989, Changing, Unchanging Nantucket, bemoaning the changing island. It’s quaint in its complaints about the transformation, with notes like “[T]he tariff for motor vehicles had gone to $66.50 from $47.50 each way.” It’s $380 now. And the development and traffic and loss of stores on Main Street he catalogs are nothing compared to what I witnessed this summer. The stores that replaced the stores he misses have been replaced again by new stores — the Benetton is long gone! And yet it’s true, the mores and beaches are still the same. “There have been changes, but Nantucket remains a very special place indeed.” Indeed.