Astoria Characters: The Passionate Performer

Chrysa Petridou was working late and didn’t get home until 4 a.m. Her big blue eyes are hidden behind her designer shades, but it doesn’t help. Chrysa’s from Cyprus. She can feel sleep calling like an ambulance’s siren. So this star of the Greek stage and screen does what she always does: She acts as though she’s wide awake. After removing her sunglasses, she smiles radiantly, plants her hands on her hips and confidently tosses her long golden hair over her shoulders…

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Astoria Characters: The Guy Who Wears His Art on His Sleeves

From the rack by the entrance to his apartment, Aman Sadiyan plucks a blue leather jacket and slips it on like a second skin. Aman was born in Iran. Sporting snow-white python-scale sleeves and snaps, the vintage varsity jacket is part of Aman’s collection of wearable art. In a flourish worthy of the runway, Aman, an intense man with searing brown eyes, a shaved head and a bushy black bird’s-nest beard that’s gracefully turning grey, flashes the vintage silk lining, revealing…

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Astoria Characters: The Artist Refining Her Self-Portrait

Picture this: A little girl scribbling and drawing as soon as she could grasp a crayon in her tiny fingers. And before she could even walk or talk. A little girl who jumped out of bed every morning at dawn so she could fill in the spaces in her coloring books and work on her art before the rest of the world opened its eyes to see them. Al started drawing before she could walk or talk. That’s the portrait that Al Ruiz paints of herself and the one she keeps adding finishing touches…

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