Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

The convent of Immaculate Conception Church is jailed from 31st Street by towering black bars. The nuns don’t use the double front doors, crossed with wooden crucifixes. So it is that Sister Margaret McCabe, a wisp of a woman as sturdy as an oak, answers the bell at the side entrance. The convent has been her home for a quarter century, shortly after she became the chaplain of the Robert N. Davoren Center on Rikers Island. She leads the way to a single-windowed, cell-like room. Sister Margaret…

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Not a peep. That’s what I hear when I walk up the stairs to the top of Christine Shane‘s duplex. She has a full house. Bosco, a blue-nose pitbull, Nubia, a chihuahua/pharaoh hound mix; James, a pitbull; Jayda, a black pitbull/lab mix; Sam, a lab; and the four hairless sphynx cats — Henrik, Pandora, Trinity and Nefereti — are all in residence. Yet not so much as a bark or a meow, a growl or a hiss greets me. Two dogs are in the kitchen, one is sequestered in the bedroom,…

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Eleven. That’s the number that forever altered Sakis Karagiannakis‘ life. That’s how old he was when his father died, paving the way for his becoming the prime provider for his mother and two sisters. OK, he did get to finish grammar school and his older sister did get hired out, too, but by 13, he was working full time repairing bicycles and motorcycles. “I always wanted to be an airplane mechanic, but I never got to go to school,” says Sakis, owner of SK, the neighborhood’s…

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Prominently positioned in the living room, there’s a recliner upholstered in corduroy the color of a Christmas tree. It’s right next to a framed poster of an Ansel Adams’ photo of Yosemite National Park. When Bob Koch walks in, Caesar, a benevolent Beagle with big eyes, is lounging in it. Up until Caesar’s arrival 2 ½ years ago, it was Bob’s chair. “Now, it’s our chair,” he says, squeezing himself around the dog, who gives him a sloppy kiss. Bob is…

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“Shoe Repair & Shine.” That’s what the sign says in big, snow-white letters. But it’s probably been there since Kennedy was president; no doubt the owner never bothered to update it. After all, who shines shoes any more? Open the old wooden door, and there’s Gonzalo Zhicay vigorously buffing the knee-high boots of a young woman as she sits on a wooden throne, her wedge heels propped up on shiny brass stands. There’s a rhythm to his work; back and forth,…

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