Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

It’s not the awning. That Italian-flag green flap of fabric is pretty pedestrian. No, what attracts attention to Cassinelli is that it’s shuttered so much of the time. Astoria’s only pasta maker is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and even when it’s open, its front-window gate is rolled down for 30 minutes at lunchtime and again at 3:30 in the afternoon when the cappeletti and cappelloini, the fettuccine and fusilli, the ravioli and rigatoni and the tagliolini and tortellini…

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In the cubicle that serves as Owen McKagen‘s kitchen, there’s a box the size of a cat’s litter pan. A couple of coleus are sprouting out of it. It’s on top of a grey plastic garbage can that’s filled with 25 goldfish. Make that 24 goldfish — one of them is no longer with us. The fish are swimming in the can because one of the glass panels in the aquarium has a fatal crack. Owen’s crude setup is an aquaponic garden. The idea behind the sustainable food-production…

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Judy Lopez sits on the couch sipping a soda. Her husband, Ricky, settles into the recliner with Dixie, a bug-eyed pug, riding shotgun on its ample arm. It doesn’t get better than this. The trio is content to tune in to the flat-screen TV. Ricky, a tall, dark man with ocean-deep eyes, and Judy, pretty in a practical page-boy, got married late in life. He was 39, and she was 42 when they became man and wife a decade ago. They added Dixie to their family a year after their wedding. An AOL personal…

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The diamond engagement ring doesn’t come off Ronnie Hartley‘s finger easily. For nearly 46 years, she’s worn it, ever since Roger, her dear and dearly departed, gave it to her. He had been betrothed to another; that’s why he had the ring handy. “I only knew him a month, and we’d only gone out on one date when I proposed to him,” says Ronnie. “The ring fit me perfectly. He wanted to change the setting because it was for the other woman, but I said, ‘The…

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In the front window, there’s a baby-blue neon sign shaped like a key. The words LICENSED LOCKSMITH glow in gold along its length. In case you miss it, there’s a banner that screams, for all intents and purposes, that this is the one and only Admiral Locksmith (keys made while you wait) that’s been on Broadway at 37th Street for more than six decades. It’s backed up by a two-story-high marquee that looks as though it belongs on that other Broadway. If you still don’t…

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