Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

Sometimes all you need to change the course of your life is someone giving you a nudge in a different direction. Victoria’s new book will be out next month. For best-selling author Victoria Lee, that moment came when she was in graduate school, earning a doctorate in psychology to complement her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the same subject. Victoria, tall, dark and movie-star pretty, had been writing her entire life, usually penning a novel a year. But not once…

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At one point in the history of the history book he was writing, Richard Melnick got so fed up that he considered chucking the manuscript in the East River. He’s still not sure why he didn’t. Richard’s a doorman on the Upper East Side. It’s the first book he’s ever penned solo, and he figured it would be easy because in the past, which is what he’s passionate about, he had contributed to several other history volumes. So confident was he of the venture that he told…

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Declaring that he likes to eat more than he likes to cook, David Manrique fires up the iron skillet. David is from Colombia. He drops dollops of butter into the pan and stirs in chopped onions, scallions and tomatoes. When everything is sauteed to his satisfaction, he cracks open the eggs, scrambling them. He’s already made the arepas – yes, you can buy them in the store, but they just aren’t as good. Cooking this dish, arepas y huevos pericos, makes David feel closer to home,…

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To say that this has been a time of great change for Alan Rand is a vast understatement. Alan, who is 70, lost his longtime job in commercial interior design and moved from Brooklyn Heights, where he had lived in a rent-stabilized apartment for 40 years, to Astoria a year and a half ago. Alan’s new to Astoria. It has been liberating. Even exciting. Because for the first time in his life, Alan, who has white hair and the enthusiasm of a teenager who has just been on his first…

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A couple, a pair of Shiba Inus in tow, orders iced coffees and muffins. After the women make their exit – the dogs don’t want to leave, even to go to the park — a guy comes in and asks for a coffee and a toasted bagel slathered with cream cheese. Maria’s the owner of the Sunshine Cafe. His friend arrives moments later and sits at an outdoor table with a black coffee plied with enough sugar to make it as sweet as one of the Danishes he didn’t order. The next customer…

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