23. Charlotte Sky and Vic Skolnick

The Huntington duo has shot way up on the list because, well, they were way too low to begin with. We have tended to take politics and business more seriously than culture; this year we reevaluated that stance. Sky and Skolnick built a tiny movie the- ater into the Island’s foremost independent cultural institution. Even big guns from major Hollywood stu- dios talk about the power of this innovative cinema outlet, and the Suffolk ACLU describes it as “the des- tination for free expression on Long Island.” The theater not only hosts exotic foreign and political films, they debut provocative mainstream blockbusters like In America and Kinsey.