Author: ruhlwrite

It’s not pretty, and that’s the beauty of it. Miwako Kimura‘s workshop, for that is what she calls it, was meant to be a bedroom. It can fit a double bed but not much more. Sun streams through its only window, illuminating the cardboard boxes that hug the walls, a giant wheel of bubble wrap suspended from the ceiling like a star and three utilitarian, hard-used desks. It is in this space — “I apologize that it’s so messy” — that Miwako comes to craft…

Continue Reading →

It all started in Spain, and like many things in life, David Tepper didn’t plan any of it. Fate or God or the universe pushed and pulled him in different directions until he found himself sitting behind the check-out desk at Nook n’ Crannie, the second-hand shop that gives alcoholics and addicts a second chance. David, executive director of the nonprofit Betel of America that runs the shop, has never had a substance-abuse problem. But he grew up surrounded by people who thought nothing…

Continue Reading →

“Going out of business (3/3/12).” These words, which forever alter the futures of Tom Park and his six employees, are scrawled in cursive on a piece of lime-green cardboard taped to the front door of Johnny on the Spot. Johnny on the Spot has been on this spot at Ditmars Boulevard and 37th Street for so long that nobody, not even Tom, knows when it opened. It had that name when he, full of hope and ideas, bought it nine years ago. Tom has spent his career in the dry-cleaning business,…

Continue Reading →

Michael Serao isn’t wearing a suit. This would not be worth noting were it not for the fact that Michael is a banker, whose ranks are most suited to suits. His uniform — striped tie and shirt, black slacks and baby-blue sweater that matches his eyes — suits him and the kind of hands-on community banking he likes to do. Michael, who has a Mercedes, a Rolex and a heart of gold, is the regional manager/vice president of Quontic Bank, which recently opened its Astoria branch. Quontic…

Continue Reading →

I moved to Astoria on a February day, when the daffodils were in full bloom and the snow was on the red, red roses. It wasn’t just my front yard that was blossoming. Up and down the block, the mini gardens were filled with summer flowers in winter: black-eyed Susans, tulips, lilies, iris, dahlias, carnations and a profusion of petals in comical circus colors that I’m sure even God doesn’t have names for. There were a lot of other surprising things in my front yard — a crumbling…

Continue Reading →