Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

The small studio is hidden, behind a hollow-core wooden door, in a corner of the basement apartment. Its scant space is squandered by a plastic shower curtain that separates it from the mechanical machinery that runs the four-family house. It is here, in the shallow night light of a single ceiling bulb, that Angelo Giokas retreats to create the pseudo-urban mixed-media hodge-podge collages that define his artistic life. “My working process is akin to a dance or a song,” he says. “I respond…

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There are eight fresh-baked cupcakes on the metal stand. Anastasia Cunningham is crowning each with a snowflake star smothered in shiny sugar sprinkles. Like a jeweler setting a diamond, she centers each star and gently eases it into the swirl of soft icing, where it must lie not too low or too high but just right to make its aesthetic presence known. For Anastasia, the cupcakes are simple fare. Her Aloria Cakes and Gourmet Sweets is known for complicated custom orders that are as much decorative…

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When the Battle of the Bulge bomb went off, Herb Greenberg flew up in the air. He landed on his back. Separated from this event by the passage of seven decades, Herb, sitting in his big easy chair, inserts a metal leg brace into his left shoe and deftly ties the thin black laces. He’s itching to take his walker out so he can sit on the park bench. From there, he can watch the children play and the flag on the pole wave in the wind. He’s 95; it’s a pleasant way to pass the time. The bomb…

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Along the stretch of 27th Street that slouches toward Con Ed, there are 22 new honey locust trees. Nancy Perez knows this because it is she who spearheaded the effort to get them planted through Greening Western Queens when she and her husband, Rob Rodriguez, moved into their house in 2011. “There were no trees on the entire block,” she says, strolling in the sidewalk shade. “There was only sun.” Nancy knows first-hand the sear of the sun. She has been up since 6 a.m. tending not only…

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Six-year-old Abby wants to be a catterfly, a creature of her imagination that is at once cat and butterfly, and her less articulate 3-year-old brother, Andy, can’t wait to turn himself into a snake monster. Lenore drew from her childhood to create her career. That’s why they’re visiting Lenore Koppelman, who is going to make their fantasies come true with nothing more than a little face paint and a lot of creativity. “This is all about making sure you have fun,” Lenore says as she sits…

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