Author: ruhlwrite

In a shop that has long been vacant on Ditmars Boulevard, a gleaming gold coin-shaped sign has risen like the sun. “Cordwainers NYC” is what it says. In case you don’t know that a cordwainer is a fancy name for a cobbler, the words underneath, “Fine Shoe & Handbag Restoration,” offer a gentle hint. The place, in the middle of a block that’s mostly residential, is meant to be as elegant as Richard Ponce is in the chic milk chocolate leather apron he’s…

Continue Reading →

It’s not the awning. That Italian-flag green flap of fabric is pretty pedestrian. No, what attracts attention to Cassinelli is that it’s shuttered so much of the time. Astoria’s only pasta maker is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and even when it’s open, its front-window gate is rolled down for 30 minutes at lunchtime and again at 3:30 in the afternoon when the cappeletti and cappelloini, the fettuccine and fusilli, the ravioli and rigatoni and the tagliolini and tortellini…

Continue Reading →

In the cubicle that serves as Owen McKagen‘s kitchen, there’s a box the size of a cat’s litter pan. A couple of coleus are sprouting out of it. It’s on top of a grey plastic garbage can that’s filled with 25 goldfish. Make that 24 goldfish — one of them is no longer with us. The fish are swimming in the can because one of the glass panels in the aquarium has a fatal crack. Owen’s crude setup is an aquaponic garden. The idea behind the sustainable food-production…

Continue Reading →

Judy Lopez sits on the couch sipping a soda. Her husband, Ricky, settles into the recliner with Dixie, a bug-eyed pug, riding shotgun on its ample arm. It doesn’t get better than this. The trio is content to tune in to the flat-screen TV. Ricky, a tall, dark man with ocean-deep eyes, and Judy, pretty in a practical page-boy, got married late in life. He was 39, and she was 42 when they became man and wife a decade ago. They added Dixie to their family a year after their wedding. An AOL personal…

Continue Reading →

The diamond engagement ring doesn’t come off Ronnie Hartley‘s finger easily. For nearly 46 years, she’s worn it, ever since Roger, her dear and dearly departed, gave it to her. He had been betrothed to another; that’s why he had the ring handy. “I only knew him a month, and we’d only gone out on one date when I proposed to him,” says Ronnie. “The ring fit me perfectly. He wanted to change the setting because it was for the other woman, but I said, ‘The…

Continue Reading →