[Carmine Abbruzzese] is 92 now and his wife is 82, and their immediate neighbor on one side, at the moment, is a baseball batting range and go-cart park. On the other side is a vast tract of land upon which bulldozers push the dirt, creating clouds of coffee-colored dust all day long. "Independence Plaza - Opening Spring '92," says the sign in front of the worksite.

Red, white and blue flags that say Open - eight of them - line the roadway alongside the batting range, and the last of these flags is planted about 15 feet from Abbruzzese's feet.

"Why should they?" Abbruzzese said, sitting under one of the last, old maple trees on Middle Country Road as two young girls walked by on the sidewalk next to the house, each girl bent toward the other to hear, over the noise of the traffic, what the other was saying.