Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

Every day, Ron Hall walks three and a half miles. He’s a heavy smoker, has been for 42 years, and he figures that the exercise cancels out the tobacco.   Ron started drawing when he was 10. Now, his strolls have an added purpose: They give him the opportunity to pass by his mural. With support from the community, he painted on the 8th-Street side of the deli on Astoria Boulevard where Two Coves Community Garden meets the Astoria Houses projects.   Ron’s mural on 8th Street…

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Belmont. JFK Airport. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The World Financial Center. Con Ed. Lincoln Center. Yankee Stadium. The Metropolitan Opera House. The World Trade Center. Aqueduct.   Harvey has been working for Empire City Iron Works since 1961.    As Harvey A. Heffner is reciting this auspicious list, his younger brother, Edward D. Heffner, interrupts: Don’t forget the 1964 World’s Fair. Oh, yes, Harvey says, we did 16 pavilions there. Sixteen! It was a rush job,…

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Tony De Pace, tanned as a pancake, has just come back from Disney World.     If you didn’t know that, the Mickey Mouse mugs on the cluttered coffee table and large framed photos of the celebrated Florida amusement park that are perched prominently on the bookshelves would have clued you in. This was his 20th trip; he’s been going since he was 30, which was nearly four decades ago. “Disney World brings out the little child in me,” he says, grinning.     Actually,…

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The first thing you see in Mark A. Thomas’ apartment is the Roland digital piano. It’s big and black, and you have to dance around it, as Dick Van Dyke did with that pesky ottoman, to get into the living room without tripping over it. Mark’s official occupation is artist. Actually, it would be more accurate to call the living room an office because, aside from a dark brown faux-leather slouch couch, a 70-inch flat-screen TV and a computer with dual flat-screen monitors, its only…

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It happened a little more than two years ago, but Allen Schulz says it seems more like a lifetime. In March 2014, he was in Pittsburgh to see a performance of his latest composition, , a 15-minute work for cello and piano. Allen’s a composer. It was doubly exciting because Allen’s friend had played the cello part to perfection. To celebrate, they went out to dinner. As they were standing in a dark alley chatting afterward, Allen suddenly clutched his chest and fell to the ground. Before…

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