Experts predict that with ocean temperatures at record highs and the global climate shifting into a hazardous La Niña pattern this year, the result could be one of the worst hurricane seasons on record.

Heavy on Island hotels with a handful of fun and games in the mix, Boston-based developer Charles Hajjar and wife Anne own properties in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs.

The Goldstein family has owned the Mansion House at the head of Main street Vineyard Haven for the past four decades, with Sherman and Susan Goldstein buying the hotel in February 1986.

Larkin Stallings, the owner of the Ritz Cafe in Oak Bluffs, realized his prospects of becoming a famous bass guitarist were grim shortly after opening his first music club.

One of a handful of female owners of main street properties when she founded Claudia in Vineyard Haven in 1971, Claudia Canerdy says she never thought of herself as an anomaly.

Sitting on a bench in front of Vineyard Scoops ice cream shop, Geno Courtney spends his days surveying Edgartown’s downtown.

The Hall family history of Island real estate ownership runs deep in all three down-Island main streets and beyond.

The Gazette set out to answer the question who, exactly, owns the downtowns? The analysis found that while ownership is varied and covers a wide spectrum, certain family names jumped out, among them Hall, Courtney and Hajjar.