Newsday from New York, New York • 28

Whed i. workaholic, and if he up his mind, nobody eanchange The seventh of 23 children bom in -Aigion, Greece, Vourderis kept escaping from U.S. immigration agents during World War IL Finally, exasperated officials put him in the Army, in charge of a meas hall with 260 German and Italian prisoners of war and helped make him a citizen, changing his first name from Constantines in the process. Vourderis planned to return to Greece but found out hia mother and several brothers had been killed by Communist troops after World War IL He landed in an Army psychiatric hospital with aevere depression. "I got very sick, Vourderis said.

"The Army made me good, and discharged me on June 7, 1946. After decades of selling hot dogs and fixing appliances, he borrowed $4,000 in gifts LaChaae received for her 1973 wedding and bought a hot dog trailer in Kentucky. He persuaded the owner of a kiddie park to rent him a 6-by-18-foot stretch of Boardwalk near the Wonder Wheel. Two years later, he got more space for a promise to fix the parks rides. "We didn't know rides, said LaChaae.

"We knew hot dogs. But he figured if he could fix those appliances, he could figure out how to fix the rides. Finally in 1980 he forged an agreement to buy out the parks owner with no money down, paying $160,000 in four installments of $37,500 during that first summer. It ia the same way he bought the Wonder Wheel in 1983. Lying in a hospital bed recovering from stab wounds received when he tried to break up a fight near hia hot dog stand, he received a call from Wheel-owner Freddie Ganns with an nuainei tail offer.

"He asked me for $250,000 and I aaid, You got it, Vourderis aaid. The wheel was paid off in two years, and thia year he bought the land the wheel sits on for another $150,000. Vourderis today is among the largest ride operators in Coney Island, matched only by the Albert brothers who run Astroland and the city-owned Cyclone roller coaster. Vourderia said he has turned down a $500,000 offer to move the Wheel to the Foconos. Hie instead puts his money into Coney Island.

And hia attention has been drawn three blocks to the east, where Steeplechase Park once stood, to where rusted wires flap uselessly against the hulking ruin of the parachute jump. "I could fix that thing and make it work, he said. By Bob Liff Denos Vourderia, the Greek-bom ini-haniel wizard who realized a life ambition when he bought Coney Islands Wonder Wheel, ignored the kiddie roller eoaater rattling the walla of hia cavelike office and negotiated the facta of hia life with hia daughter. Tm 71, said Vourderis, wearing hia Wonder Wheel T-ahirt and wiping greaae from decadea-old geara ftiwn Ilia lianHi. Hes 67, said Ariatea LaChaae, 86, who works with her mother, sister, two brothers and seven dogs in running the family amusement company.

Vourderia, a barely literate but financially canny man, has told so many stories over the years that even his family has a hard time separating feet from the legend that runs from 1939, when he Jumped ship in Baltimore harbor, to his current success as head of an amusement park empire. But at a time when the 67-year-old Wonder Wheel along with the nearby Cyclone roller coaster and rusted parachute jump is before the Landmarks Preservation Commission for official status as a monument to Coney Islands glory as the working-class Riviera, Vourderis may be as much a landmark aa the Wheel. A final ruling is expected to take six months. "I went to the best schools, joked the who sold hot dogs at Columbia University and City College. "If I could read, Td be richer than Rockefeller.

"He fell down so many times, La-Chase said. "If he had more formal education, he might not have gotten up again. Hia legend centers an the day in 1948 when he proposed to Lula at the Wonder Wheel, the combination of Ferris wheel height and roller coaster thrills with caged cars careening on tracks. "I told her you marry me I buy you the Wonder Wheel, Vourderis said. "I couldnt buy it because I had no money.

I bought her two wheels instead, a pushcart. But the Wonder Wheel stayed an obsession. "In my baby album, its in every picture, LaChaae said. Lula, who still runs the food stand at Denos Wonder Wheel Park, smiled as she recounted his career begun selling hot dogs and fixing broken appliances picked from the garbage. "Our whole life has been a gamble, said Lula, who met Denos in a Manhattan hot dog garage.

"Hes a Ni a CD CO CM Alternatives to Bork Wbrry His Foes Burk's rheums for wwitin6w pjden is leading the fight to block Borks confirmation and said he dropped out of the race to devote all hia effort to keeping Reagan from reshaping the Supreme Court in his conservative image. Bidens withdrawal was a "idiot in the aim for pro-Bark forces, Daniel J. Popeo, counsel for the conservative Washington Legal Foundation, told the Aaaodated Ifress. Continued from Page 7 46-46, compared with August, when 47 approved and 32 disapproved. A New York TimesCBS News survey done after Borks testimony at Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, showed 26 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Bork, 16 percent had a favorable opinion and 57 percent were undecided or had no opinion.

In a Sept. 9-10 poll, before Borks testimony, 12 percent re sponded unfavorably, 11 percent favorably and 77 percent were undecided or without an opinion. But some Bork supporters aaid that the withdrawal of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Wednesday from the presidential campaign after he admitted to plagiarism during his first year of law school, to inflating his college record and to borrowing others phrasing in pnnriinf rfjrlns would boost But Democrats said the anti-Biden rhetoric was more evidence that Borks chances for wmllrmstinm slipping away. "I think the statements by Popeo and others are merely another indication of the increasing concern among the pro-Bock forces generally, and Hie right wing in particular, thst fliil nnmlintlim is ill trouble, said Peter Smith, judiciary committee spokesman.

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