Month: September 2010

“I love the women,” says Angelo Grivokostopoulos. “I want to make all the women in the world beautiful all the time.” As he says this, he artfully arranges himself like a model on the sleek white leather sofa. He’s wearing a black T-shirt paired with skin-tight jeans, and when he crosses his legs, he displays his black leather cowboy boots to good effect. The ensemble highlights his black hair, which is peppered with just enough silver to make it sexy chic. Angelo,…

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“Everybody says we look alike,” says Francine Amendola. “But our mother says we don’t,” adds her sister, Laraine Amendola. (“It’s spelled L-a-r-a-i-n-e; I’m a stickler on that,” she says.) OK, there’s no way that Francine and Laraine could ever be mistaken for twins, but at the same time nobody would ever deny that they are sisters. Francine, the older, dresses a little more conservatively and her features are slightly more refined, but…

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Dr. Tom Moulton arrives cradling an orchid in one hand and a loaf of home-made soda bread in the other. My white phalaenopsis is wilting, so he rushed right over. “Oh, it didn’t make it! But don’t worry, the white ones are common,” he says soothingly as he presents me with the yellow orchid he brought as a replacement. “You can easily find another one.” Tom is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center who takes care of kids who have…

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Shrill as a scream, the cry pierces the air. There’s a squirrel climbing the tree, but no squirrel ever emitted such a sound. Behind the high emerald-green gate, two bear-cub-like dogs are howling their heads off. This isn’t the country, this is 41st Street, where the raw-edge warehouses live. The cry comes again; it’s a good-morning crow from a red-headed rooster! Michael Halberian, a genial fellow with over-the-ears silver hair and a lad’s spring in his step, pops his head…

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