Author: ruhlwrite

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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Anastasia Tsantes stands on her feet all day. She’s a waitress who’s used to pulling 12- and 13-hour shifts. Yeah, working leaves her dog tired, but she’s never too worn out to dance in the footsteps of her Greek ancestors. “The dancing, it comes from my soul,” she says. Every Tuesday and Wednesday night, Anastasia, the president of the Greek-American Folklore Society, lifts up her heels and her heart to the tunes that made her mother, and her grandmother before her,…

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This is kind of creepy: Evan Makrogiannis is talking about mixing up a batch of blood. The recipe is so simple that even a child can do it, and his sons, 13-year-old Liam and 12-year-old Tristan, are pros at adding red, blue and yellow food coloring to corn syrup. Now, intestines, that’s another matter. It’s not exactly a trade secret, but Liam and Tristan, cool kids in geeky horn-rimmed glasses, are not sure they want to spill the beans about how they spill their guts. Evan waves his…

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The Rev. Dwayne L. Jackson is standing tall in the pulpit staring at the empty pews. The First Reformed Church of Astoria, the red Gothic Revival building wedged between the houses of 12th Street like an afterthought, holds 300 faithful. On a good Sunday — there are no bad Sundays or any other days of the week in Dwayne’s mind — attendance has never topped 50. Today’s Saturday, the day Dwayne puts the finishing touches on his sermon, so the fact that he’s alone with…

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The tail of the “Y” went missing at Rudy’s Hobby Supplies. Sometime in time, someone painted it in to match the rest of the bright cobalt name on the 3-D sign. It’s an expert stroke of brushmanship, so this flat portion isn’t noticeable from the street. The left plate-glass window of the shop (Trains-Models-Paints-Magazines) on 30th Avenue is filled with rosaries, car magnets bearing the engraved images of saints and statues of Mother Mary and Jesus in various pious…

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