Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

The guy behind the desk gets up to answer the phone. In the blink of an eye, he’s back. Richard, left, and Manny are identical twins. But wait a second. He’s wearing a black shirt. When he left, it was blue. How did he do that? The unintended joke’s on you: He’s not one but two. Manny Varela Jr., the black shirt, and Richard Varela, the blue shirt, are identical twins. Manny’s the older — by 5 minutes. Manny is quick to point out, unprompted, that he’s…

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There are parts of his past that are sad, so William Javier Velazquez does what he has been doing his entire life to ease the pain. He puts a record on the turntable. Javi’s the owner of HiFi Records & Cafe. The soul-soothing sound of Leon Bridges’ is what people hear when they walk into HiFi Records & Café, which he opened earlier this year for fellow vinyl aficionados. The first ears it reaches are those of his wife, Ülkü Aybar-Velazquez, and their year-old daughter,…

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Onesis Castillo arrives carefully carrying a cactus, and Gilberto Gonzalez holds open the plate-glass door of Crystal Gardens to let him in. Crystal Gardens is small and Broadway is big, so you’d think you’d be likely to miss it. Except that you can’t. Gilberto and Onesis won’t let you. Crystal Gardens is at 31-18 Broadway. It is they who make the miniature fantasylands populated with cacti and cute critters. Hanging in the window, the glass globes shine in the sunlight…

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The day is as steamy as the tea Sophie Kempner is sipping. Imbibing it is part ritual, part thirst. And it’s Sophie. Sophie grew up on a farm in England. Sophie, you see, is from England, and she brought this old-fashioned, stereotypically British habit all the way across the Atlantic with her. It makes her feel a little closer to home. Home was Chesham, a bucolic market town an hour’s train ride from London. Sophie and her two sisters — she’s the one in the middle —…

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She’s traveled all over the world, but today, and nearly every day, the longest journey that Anastasia Damianeas will take is from her home to her office. It’s more than 30 miles from Melville, Long Island to Hermes Travel, which puts Nancy, the nickname she goes by, on the road for about an hour each way when there’s no traffic or good weather, which is never. Nancy and her mother run Hermes Travel. Hermes is a mom-and-daughter travel agency that has stayed in the same location,…

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