Author: ruhlwrite

‘Tis the month of Christmas, and I’m strolling along Steinway Street, when what do my wondering ears hear but “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I look left. I look right. Curiously, the carol isn’t coming from a car stereo. Or a store. I’m not Dorothy, but I stare at my shoes; will Santa and his sleigh go away if I click my bronze MBTs three times? And then I look to the sky and see the sound. Yes, Virginia, the song is singing itself silly out of a speaker strapped…

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Gurgle, gurglegurglegurgle, gurgle. Rich Buceta gets so excited when he hears this sound that you’d think he’d discovered a multi-million-dollar oil well gushing up through his factory floor. He walks over to a giant shiny silver tank that looks like a spaceship from a forbidden planet and points to a hose that’s snaking out of its nostrils. A bubbling amber liquid is flowing into a large white plastic bucket. “It’s the carbon dioxide being released from fermentation,”…

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There’s a pigeon flying overhead when Eugene and Kaori Oda open the front door. And another. And another. Three in all. They land in the living room, where they’re sitting in a row on the sofa, which is protected by a pair of plastic tablecloths printed with pictures of autumn leaves. Eugene rolls up a desk chair and sets a roll of toilet paper on the glass-topped coffee table. You never know when or where Troy, Nini and Lucky are going to let one fly. Pigeon poop, Eugene explains,…

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Moustafa Elshiekh places a color photo reverently on his desk. It was taken this year, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, and in it, he’s standing between Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand also are in the official lineup at the Manhattan memorial. This picture marks a milestone for Moustafa, a longtime leader of the city’s Arab Muslim community, for it was when the terrorist planes struck the Twin Towers in 2001 that…

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BOWLING. That’s what the big illuminated sign screams in red-apple letters that look as though they should be shining on a Times Square marquee. It’s a striking announcement on a middle-of-nowhere block filled with warehouses hemmed in by houses, all the more so because Elaine Poulos, the face of the place, is such an unassuming woman. She’s small and spare with long, brown hair. It’s hard to imagine her doing something so harsh as throwing a bowling ball. It’s easier…

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