The Rx Man

The old wooden floor creaks, and Harry Xidias smiles. He finds the sound comforting. Harry owns City View Pharmacy. When he hears it, he knows he’s home. Home is City View Pharmacy, the business he founded nearly a decade ago in a building that’s old enough to be his grandfather. Harry, sanguine and solid, looks up at the tin ceiling. It, too, carries the weight of time. He could have covered it with acoustic tile, but he painted it welcome white instead. “City View is all about…

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The Trivia Guy You Saw on TV

Well-known fact: Ken Jennings won $100,000 yesterday on . Little-known fact: Tony Hightower is the guy who couldn’t give him the right answer. Tony founded TriviaNYC. Tony, Jennings’ “lifeline,” knew he was in trouble because the question — Which Ivy League has eating clubs instead of fraternities and sororities? — tapped into two subjects he knows nothing about: universities and the U.S. education system. “I grew up in Canada,” says Tony. “I’m…

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The Sidewalk Library

On the sidewalk, under the tree, there’s a fire-engine-red box with a glass door. It’s filled with books for everyone on the block to borrow. The Little Free Library on the sidewalk. Margarita Soto‘s and Will Bachman‘s children, 9-year-old Samuel, 6-year-old Alejandra and 3-year-old Veronica, are perusing the volumes as if they have discovered buried treasure. Out back, there are three cackling chickens running in circles. The family’s poodle puppy, Machu Picchu, is…

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The Plant Sculptor

At day’s beginning and end, it’s black along the patch of 24th Avenue between 23rd and 24th Streets. The scarce shops, shuttered, are slumbering. Luludi Living Art serves as a grow-light. Luludi Living Art glows in the dark. In case you don’t know it — and how could you not if you live in Astoria? — luludi is the Greek word for flower. Luludi’s illuminated front window spotlights plants that wiggle their roots in terrariums, picture frames and moss-covered dogs,…

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