Sitting on the stoop sipping coffee, Ahmed El Shaer can’t help but marvel at his good fortune.

A visual artist, he’s just moved into a new apartment that has a back yard and enough space for him to paint and create videos.

He looks toward the front window, where he can see the unpacked boxes piled up in the living room. His year-old black rescue cat, Tomasa, stares back at him with owl-like amber eyes.

Ahmed, who has curly black hair, a soft voice and a curated beard speckled with silver, counts his blessings:

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Ahmed’s from Cairo.

He has two part-time jobs – he teaches video art to middle-school and high-school students at the Museum of the Moving Image and is a member of the ArtsConnection think tank developing online courses for children in city schools.

He’s newly married. (She’s an education director at a museum; they share the apartment with her mother, who is an artist.)

And he’s living in New York, which puts him in the middle of the greatest contemporary art scene in the world.

Ahmed is, of course, more than familiar with that scene.

And they run deep.

The apartment he just vacated was near the Hell Gate Bridge.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Ahmed’s recent painting of the Hell Gate Bridge.

He goes inside and emerges a couple of minutes later with a small, long canvas he just completed that shows the view of Astoria Park he used to have.

“I love this bridge,” he says, in awe of its engineering and architecture.

The thing is, Ahmed never really planned any of this; good things and extraordinary opportunities just kept happening to him, pushing him into place.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

He works for the Museum of the Moving Image and ArtsConnection.

Ahmed, a multi-disciplinary artist whose primary medium is video, has always been interested in art.

He was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, where his parents, particularly his mother, encouraged him and nurtured his budding talent.

Shortly after he earned a bachelor’s degree in culture and arts from the Faculty of Art and Education at Cairo’s Helwan University, he entered a competition that led to his landing a full-time job in graphic design with Egypt’s Ministry of Culture, a position he retained from 2002 to 2018.

From 2016 to 2018, he also taught media arts at the University for Modern Sciences and Arts in Cairo.

While he worked those two jobs, Ahmed continued to pursue his personal artistic endeavors, winning competitions and traveling all over the world to show his work.

“I didn’t feel like a stranger because at that time – I was born in 1981 – Egypt was very much influenced by American culture,” he says, adding that he was a preteen when the first McDonald’s opened in Cairo. “I felt like I was home.”

As Ahmed continued to develop his art talent, the world stood up and took notice.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Ahmed’s work has been shown at The Guggenheim and Venice Biennale.

His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, Bamako Biennale, CairoTronica, The Guggenheim, the Museum of the Moving Image and Casa Árabe in Madrid.

Ahmed’s videos combine Machinima, stock footage, 3D animation and experimental soundscapes and cover a range of themes.

His Crossover (The Scene) was inspired by migrants in a refugee camp in Calais, France; Selection, Reflection, Attention tackles the topic of natural selection; Hybrid Spaces and Other Objects is a visual bouquet of surrealist animation fantasy; and Cairo Under Attack channels the Godzilla film franchise with a set of game’s-on digital monsters.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

A painting in progress.

In 2018, Ahmed landed a nine-month residency in the Game Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles as part of a Fulbright research program.

After returning to Cairo, briefly, for a group exhibition, Ahmed came to Astoria, where the Museum of the Moving Image was showing his work.

While he was in Astoria, he reunited with the woman he had been corresponding with for nearly a decade. Late last year, they married.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

A work in progress with a beekeeper theme.

Ahmed, who is classically trained, learned the art of video at an independent workshop.

He concedes that producing art, especially video art, is not an easy way to earn a living.

Materialism, however, does not really interest him.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Ahmed feels at home in New York, his new home.

“Being a full-time artist and working in my studio is my dream,” he says. “But teaching is part of my practice, too. I love it because new-media art is dynamic; there’s always something new to learn about it. I teach my students, but I also learn from them, and that helps me as an artist.”

New York, he says, is stuck with him.

“I plan to stay here because of the new life and family I have established,” he says. “My art is second only to my wife. New York is the source of the art movement. I can study new kinds of art here.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

Text and Photos by Nancy A. Ruhling

While Zora’s tail wagged like a hummingbird’s wings, the puppy got into play pose.

I watched in wonder – and shock.

Zora’s a dedicated dog despiser. When she spies or smells one of her own kind, she throws a tantrum that involves growling, barking and grabbing the leash and vigorously trying to rip it off so she can go after the offender. (She’s never been successful in this endeavor.)

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Titus and Zora break out of quarantine.

When we walk, I weave in and out of the streets, dodging dogs, so I didn’t need much practice to master maneuvering away from people when social distancing started.

In the beginning, Zora tried to pull me toward her peeps, but after a while, she seemed to catch on, and just like all the humans, started moving to the other side of the street to avoid close encounters of any kind.

So I was unprepared when she pulled me toward the puppy in the window. I was even more surprised that this would be only one of many attempts she has made to form new relationships while sheltering in place.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Having a pre-playdate drink.

I’ve read several stories on the therapeutic effect of dogs on people, especially during times of stress and solitude. And I’ve seen reports on how having their humans at home 24/7 makes dogs head-over-tails happy.

But I’ve yet to read an article about how the quarantine affects dogs psychologically, radically changing their behavior like Zora’s.

OK, to be totally transparent, Zora does have two canine companions. Daisy, a mixed breed, is her BFF. Born on the same date, they met in Astoria Park as puppies. It was love at first hug: They lay down on the sidewalk, wet nose to wet nose, and put their arms around each other until they were pried apart.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The Mighty Titus.

Titus, a yellow lab, is a big, bellowing brute. He’s Zora’s best beau – or at least he thinks he is.

But Zora tolerates Daisy and Titus only so she can get close to their humans. She’s so enamored of Daisy’s mom, Judy, that when I left Zora with her for a weekend, she all but refused to come home.

And when we run into Titus, Zora passes him up and jumps on Jimmy.

Zora’s a flirt – in her mind, no walk is complete without a pack of people petting her.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

So happy together!

She has her own fan club. Amaro, the counterman at the corner deli; Mary, the cat rescuer; and Sarah, the waitress who wants to be an actress. Then there’s Ellie, who caresses her and calls her “koukla,” and Marie, whose blueberry muffins she wolfs down when I’m not looking.

And the scores of strangers she sidles up to who can’t resist petting the fluffy dog who looks like Benji’s big sister.

These days, Zora has to content herself with sitting outside Daisy’s house, hoping her pal will make an appearance on the balcony. Or sniffing at Jimmy’s car, an old silver Honda with an ashtray on the dashboard and a sticker that says “Buffalo” on the back window.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The three-pack.

She noses around the wheels, drinking in the scent, then plants her front paws possessively on the door, peering in at Titus’ pillow and glow-in-the-dark tennis balls.

In between these not-very-satisfying activities, she has continued to make new friends. Lately, she has had her eye on an apricot poodle and a Yorkie who yelp in their back yard as she walks by.

For an hour or so, she recently sat with Cooper, a mixed-breed puppy who looks like a fox, separated only by a chain-link fence and human chaperones.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

All smiles.

The other day, just as we were finishing our nightly walk, Zora tugged me around the corner.

Like a guided missile, she honed in on Jimmy’s silver Honda.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

One pooped pupper.

The front window was open; Jimmy, seat slung back like a La-Z-Boy lounger, was taking a nap while waiting for his laundry to dry.

Before I could stop her, Zora lunged for his lap and kissed him awake.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said as he petted her. “I’ve missed you.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

When are they coming back?

As we headed home, we passed a cute little black French bulldog.

Zora threw a tantrum.

And for a split second, it seemed like things were back to normal.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

Auburn hair waving in the wind like a kite tail, Marina Costasleads Lucky, her red-sweater-wearing white Maltipoo, into her florist shop.

Lucky, who she rescued from the streets of Greece 13 years ago, heads toward his bed as Marina brings out an elegant bouquet, an ode to rosy roses, red orchids and creamy carnations. It’s spiked with gold-spray-painted monstera spears to match its shiny brass bowl.

It may be more coincidental than calculated, but the bouquet cannily complements Marina’s hair, bright red lipstick and white blouse.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Paint by Flowers is at 24-09 41st St.

Although Marina opened Paint by Flowers in 2017, its roots reach deep into her childhood.

Marina was born on the Upper East Side, where she lived until the family moved to Flushing when she was 8.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

A detail of Marina’s red bouquet.

Her mother, a divorcee, was raising two children on her own when she met Marina’s father. A year after they wed, Marina was born.

Marina’s father, who worked as a florist’s helper until he opened his own shop, filled their home and yard with plants.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

One of Marina’s wall murals.

“Our house was like a jungle,” Marina says. “We had all kinds of fruit trees and jasmine and hibiscus.”

Although Marina sometimes helped her father man his Manhattan shop, she didn’t consider it as a career possibility.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Lucky and Marina.

She liked to draw and was, she admits, “all over the place” regarding what she wanted to do with her life.

After graduating from St. John’s University with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, her creative side asserted itself, compelling her to earn a two-year degree from the New York Acting School for Film & Television.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Marina sells live plants and cut flowers.

She played the Astoria Greek theater circuit and when she was in her early 20s, returned to art.

“I showed my first piece to my dad, and he told me he didn’t believe that I had drawn it,” she says, calling it up on her smartphone. “He thought I had taken someone else’s work and pretended it was my own.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Lucky, the shop mascot.

After a series of jobs that included waitressing, she decided to go to Greece for a short stay.

 

“It was on the outskirts of Athens by the beach,” she says, adding that her sister lives there.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Plants are art.

While she was refining her art, she worked for a clothing importing company, tutored students in English as a second language and acted in English-language shows.

“What started as a summer turned into three years,” she says. “When I came back, I started doing scenic painting and set design – I like to be behind the scenes and let my work speak for me.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

A Marina painting with flowers.

Around this time, her father decided to retire and move back to Greece, so Marina took on his long-time clients and opened Paint by Flowers.

It’s tiny – it’s in a former garage – and somewhat of a novelty – it’s surrounded by houses.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Portrait of a cactus.

Coming upon its striped black-and-white awning and flamingo-pink lights in such an incongruous  setting is like seeing a bird of paradise in full flower at the North Pole.

“I used to kill every plant I came into contact with,” Marina says, “but plants speak a language, and I am starting to speak it, too. I’ve started being sensitive to what they need to survive and thrive.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Portrait by Marina.

Entering Paint by Flowers is like walking into a rainbow: The front display window is filled with a jungle of green exotics, and the white walls are adorned with Marina’s colorful paintings. A portrait of Lucky, complete with the brass bell on his collar, hangs in the center of the shop.

“I love bright color,” Marina says. “I’m actually a tetrachromat – I have four color cones instead of three in my eyes, which bumps up the saturation and contrast so I see color in a fourth dimension. I’m very sensitive to the energy of color.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Lucky in his favorite spot.

In addition to bouquets like the red one Marina just made, the shop sells exotics like the sago palm, designs arrangements for large events and provides landscaping.

“Creating arrangements is like doing a painting,” she says. “The flower market inspires me, and once I choose a flower, I find ones that match it, and the design builds on itself. I try to capture the energy of each client.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Marina still paints and takes commissions.

Marina, who shares a small space up the street with a roommate, concedes that starting a business was far more difficult than she thought. Her work tends to be seasonal, so she and Lucky have become used to pulling all-nighters.

“I had to figure out how to run the business on my own,” she says. “It’s like I threw myself into the deep end, and I’m learning to swim. I sometimes think about going back to waiting tables because somebody always wants something from me all the time, and I always want to be there.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Waiting to be arranged.

When she isn’t busy, Marina paints, using the shop as her studio.

“Surrounded by plants, it makes it easier to paint,” she says.

Once Paint by Flowers gets off the ground, Marina wants to move to a bigger, more prominent location in Astoria so she can open when she calls a “flower coffee shop,” where people can come to hang out to enjoy all the arts just as much as she does.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Marina loves painting by color and flowers.

“I want everyone in Astoria to know I’m here,” she says.

Lucky rests his front paws on the top of his bed and gazes up at her.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

René’s the author of “The Defectors.”

René Georg Vasicek, who declares himself a “writer, garage philosopher and cosmic thinker,” is sitting in a supersize leather chair and sipping cold coffee from a ceramic mug.

While he’s expounding upon the big reality-shattering ideas that zig and zag through his existential dystopian novel, The Defectors, like an errant self-driving automobile, he experiences a profound Proustian madeleine moment.

It’s the first book he’s had published, and although it’s classified as fiction, it’s rooted firmly in René’s own past, particularly his childhood, and like his life, it features scenes in a machine shop, Astoria and Long Island’s pine barrens.

It has no plot – René sees it only as 13 episodes that sometimes involve a character called Zig. It’s about people who defect, not from other countries as his parents did when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia only months before his birth, but from reality.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

René was born in Austria.

“The Defectors,” he concedes, “has a multiplicity of realities and is self-referential at times.”

A half century ago, René was born in Stockerau, Austria, a town a dozen miles from Vienna.

Four months later, the family relocated to New York City, staying briefly in a rat-infested tenement in the South Bronx before moving to New Rochelle.

René’s father took a job as a machinist, and the family eventually bought a house in Medford, a hamlet in Long Island’s pine barrens.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

In the book, people defect from reality.

“After about a decade, my father quit his job and took all of his savings to open a machine shop in our garage,” says René. “I started helping out when I was 12.”

When he learned, aside from how to maneuver the lathe and drill press, was that success was elusive.

“Everyone who worked there had dreams, but most people failed when they went out on their own,” he says.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

René teaches at Lehman and BMCC.

But that didn’t stop René, at least not in the beginning. After graduating from SUNY Albany with a degree in English, he spent a year studying in Prague.

“My college friends were talking about law school,” he says, “so I thought I would give it a try, too.”

Four days after he returned from Czechoslovakia, René found himself at Touro Law School.

“I hated it, but I stuck with it,” he says. “I almost failed, and ultimately, although I got the degree, I failed the bar five times – I got the identical score each time – before I finally gave up.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

He grew up in Medford.

While he was waiting for his professional life to commence, he met Catherine Kapphahn, whose first book, Immigrant Daughter, was published late last year.

René, a loquacious and curious man, embarked upon a number of pedestrian jobs that he managed to make interesting.

He clerked at the bookseller Shakespeare & Co. for a short while then became the production manager at the Czech Center New York, one of the cultural institutes under the auspices of the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

René failed the bar five times before giving up law.

“I was a jack-of-all-trades there,” René says. “I did everything from chauffeuring to hanging art up on the walls for exhibitions.”

Around the same time, he and Catherine started a writers group and each decided to go back to school.

“We sat at opposite ends for our railroad apartment in Manhattan typing,” he says, “while our Belgian sheepdog shuttled back and forth between us.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The thinkers.

After he earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence, René started teaching, eventually becoming an adjunct at Hofstra.

These days, he teaches creative writing and first-year composition at Lehman College and first-year composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

About a decade ago, the seed for The Defectors was planted when a number of journals started publishing bits and pieces of what would eventually become the novel, and René started getting grants, including one from the National Endowment for the Arts, that allowed him to continue the project.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Rafa acting silly.

“When I worked for Hofstra, I would go to the top floor of the library between classes to write,” he says. “There was nobody there.”

Those leisurely days of longhand evaporated with the birth of his sons, Radek and Rafa, who are 13 and 8, and René now finds himself tapping out notes on his smartphone in spare moments.

This is not one of them. Rafa, who is helping Catherine haul in bags of supplies from Trader Joe’s, bounces into the living room and curls up with René.

“As far as The Defectors, I don’t really consider it a novel,” René says. “Maybe it’s a story collection. For me, defecting from reality is not so much defecting from family as it is defecting from the machines of life.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Rafa and René in repose.

Yes, he’s quite aware that that does, indeed, include the smartphone and computer he uses to write.

Although René has additional spontaneous, free-thinking Defectors-like episodes in mind for a sequel, he’s also mulling a narrative-driven work. But he doesn’t think he can pull it off.

“My mind doesn’t work like that,” he says. “I would like to write a book that doesn’t fit into any category, where the episodes are thought experiments. I know that The Defectors is a weird book – it’s all over the place – and I know I’m not going to make any money. But that’s OK.”

Rafa looks at his dad and smiles.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

“It’s all about the energy,” says Kim Alexandrescu as she opens the front door to Sacred Space Astoria.

Come with her into the calmness. Lose yourself in the tranquillity of the snow-white walls, the silky smooth crystals and the velvety purple phalaenopsis.

“When you come into Sacred Space, I want you to feel like you’re being held,” she says placidly as she welcomes people to the day’s first yoga class.

Sacred Space is new – it and the year 2020 commenced together – but the idea for the yoga/reiki/meditation sanctuary/studio had been peacefully floating around in Kim’s head for years.

There were, however, other things that had to be taken care of before all the energy points aligned and placed her in a prime present-moment position to do so.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kim’s a reiki master, yoga teacher and urban zen integrative therapist.

Kim, who is a yoga teacher, a reiki master and an urban zen integrative therapist, has long been fascinated with the mind-body equation.

She grew up in three suburbs of Detroit, shifting her time between her mother and father, who were only 18 when she arrived.

“They never married,” she says. “I lived with my mother and my grandparents. My mother married when I was eight, and my father married when I was 10.”

Kim, who is cool, collected and comely, always figured she would be a teacher like her mother.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Sacred Space sells a variety of crystals.

“But I didn’t want to deal with principals,” she says. “I didn’t realize there was another kind of teaching outside of the classroom, the kind I do now.”

She filled her time with gymnastics, basketball and diving. (Although she worked out with a yoga video at 16, she didn’t try yoga classes until college.)

By the time she was in 10^th grade, Kim had decided upon a very ambitious career.

“We learned about DNA,” she says. “And I said, ‘That’s what I want to study.’”

At Cedar Crest College, a small private liberal arts women’s school in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Kim studied genetic engineering then took a job in clinical genetics research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kim grew up in the suburbs of Detroit.

“It was the hardest year of my life because I didn’t know anyone,” she says. “I started visiting Astoria because I had college friends here.”

She had no intention of staying in New York City – “I had had a college internship here, and I cried because I was terrified of living here” – but the universe had other plans for her.

Her friends happened to introduce her to the man who became her husband.

“We met right away,” she says. “We went dancing, and we connected.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Sacred Space is all about positive energy.

So she married him and moved to Astoria and began working for a series of biotech companies.

“But I missed working with patients and hearing their stories,” she says.

Three years later, she landed at Columbia University, where she earned her master’s degree in biotechnology while collecting clinical data for hepatitis C research as part of her full-time job at the school’s medical center.

“I was pregnant while doing all of this,” she says. “My first child, Luka, was born three weeks after I got my master’s. While I was working on my thesis, he used to kick me when I was writing at the kitchen table.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Even the orchids are flourishing.

In 2012, shortly after Luka’s arrival, Kim quit her full-time job and took yoga teacher-training classes.

“Yoga gave me the same feeling and movements as diving and gymnastics without the risk of injures, including broken bones, that I suffered doing them,” she says.

Her daughter, Carina, who is now 6, entered the picture in 2013, around the time Kim started subbing as a yoga teacher and trying to help her mother-in-law, who was dying of cancer, feel more relaxed.

“I started doing what we called massages, but it really was some energy work in the small chakras of the body to ease her pain,” Kim says. “It was reiki, and I felt a calling to do it, which answered everything for me.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

You’ll see Kim teaching and taking classes.

In 2016, Kim became an urban zen integrative therapist, using her holistic skills to help nursing-home patients who were seriously ill or dying become comfortable.

About a year ago, she decided to concentrate on setting up Sacred Space. After searching for six months, she found a storefront on 21^st Avenue at 29th Street.

“Since 1996, the owner had used it as storage,” she says, “so it was nothing more than a concrete block.”

She filled it with positive energy and second-hand furniture – the wooden pew is from a Connecticut church, the elaborate front desk is from New Jersey, the wall of windows in the front is from a  historic manion, and the plants are from a neighbor’s house.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kim sees private clients in the reiki room.

During construction, Kim got some energy she never expected: She was pleasantly surprised to discover that she’s pregnant. Marco will make his debut in June.



“My other two children were from in vitro fertilization,” she says. “This feels totally different physically.”

She says it’s important for people in the city to have a place like Sacred Space to relax.

“The yoga we do is spiritual; it’s deep healing work, and the practice is more about the restorative than the physical,” she says. “And the teachers are empowered to create classes that are important to them.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kim invites you to Sacred Space.

Sacred Space is very much a work in progress. Kim will be adding classes, including ones for seniors, and workshops for beginners.

“I get to bring in whatever it is I want to learn,” she says, adding that vocal toning was something new for her.

Although Kim teaches some of the classes and works privately with reiki clients, she says that Sacred Space isn’t about her.

“You can feel my presence, my energy,” she says. “But I’m a student, too. I’ll be taking classes.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

“What would you like me to make?”

Sebastian Royo, the executive chef of Astoriana Diosa del Taco, is standing in the kitchen, pan in hand.

It’s early – especially if, like Sebastian, you were up working until 3 a.m. – but he can’t wait to start cooking again.

Should he fix breakfast or lunch?

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The Coliflor.

He settles on a medley of taco favorites – the Astorianos chicken, the Al Pastor, the Carne Asada and two vegetarian versions, the Flor de Jamaica and the Coliflor.

In a well choreographed routine that keeps him dancing from grill to cutting board, Sebastian, black-haired, bespectacled and buoyant, assembles the tacos and artfully arranges them on plates.   

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Sebastian is the executive chef.

“I’m just cooking what I know – legitimate tacos reminiscent of what Mexican ones taste like,” he says as he carries the dishes to the dining room, where the brick walls are painted white, the tables have wooden tops, and the gigantic triple-tier crystal chandelier is as glitzy as a Vegas showgirl.

Astoriana Diosa del Taco – “diosa” is Spanish for “goddess” — is a modern-style taqueria with a Mexican-Greek theme.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The taqueria has a Mexican/Greek theme.

It’s new to the neighborhood’s culinary scene, but Sebastian’s association with restaurants began right before he made his entrance into the world four decades ago.

(For the record, Sebastian may be 40, but he likes to add that “I’m going on 18.”)

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Sebastian has worked in several Manhattan restaurants.

Sebastian, who was born in El Paso, Texas, was raised in the rural ranch town of Casas Grandes, Mexico and later the industrial center Ciudad Juárez.

“In those days, it was easy to cross the border into the United States, and people did it all the time to go shopping,” he says, adding that he has dual Mexican-American citizenship, which also was easy to get at that time. “My parents were eating out in El Paso when my mother went into labor.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tacos the Astoriana Diosa del Taco way.

Growing up, Sebastian, whose family is what he calls “middle class by Mexican standards,” learned a lot of things; cooking wasn’t one of them.

“Casas Grandes is a Mormon/Catholic town,” he says. “The street outside my house was gravel. My school was close to the American system – half of the classes were in English, half were in Spanish.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Slicing the limes.

He didn’t find himself in the kitchen until he enrolled at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“I worked my way through college working in restaurants,” he says.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Astoriana’s goddess.

After he earned a degree in marketing and entrepreneurship, in 2005, Sebastian moved to New York City.



“I had a friend who worked for a Mexican marketing company,” he says. “I came to get a job there, and while I was waiting for an opening to occur, I started working in restaurants.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Sebastian’s at home in the kitchen.

Sebastian got hooked on cooking after a chef offered to give him lessons on his days off.

Later, he worked his way through culinary school then got gigs at several Manhattan restaurants, including 11 Madison Park, Mary’s Fish Camp, Centrico, Ilili and Zarela.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Carne in the pan.

“I never did go into marketing,” he says, adding that that’s actually a good thing because he never would have met his wife had he done so. “She was a customer at Zarela and was there on closing night in 2011 when I stopped in.”

By 2014, Sebastian was the executive sous chef at La Esquina. He also was longing to open his own restaurant, so he moved to Dallas. While he was a chef at a restaurant there, he set up a summertime food truck, El Rudo, in Denton, which he still runs.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

The Flor de Jamaica.

“When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, who is now three, we moved back to New York,” he says.

All of his experiences paved the way for Astoriana Diosa del Taco, which is officially opening this week.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Prepping the plate.

“We do traditional flavors with a modern spin,” Sebastian says. “Even though the tacos are tweaked, they are still legitimate tacos.”

For instance, Astoriana’s signature taco, which is stuffed into a Sonora-style tortilla made in-house, features funky greens, tzatziki, tahini, tomatoes and choice of chicken, lamb, beef or hibiscus filling.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Ready to pop into the mouth.

Sebastian is taking things one taco at a time; he doesn’t talk about opening additional restaurants or creating an Astoriana Diosa del Taco chain.

He says only that “I want Astoriana to become a staple in the neighborhood.”

As he clears the table, he adds, “I’ve done the whole fine-dining thing. But I like the simplicity of tacos.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

It never really occurred to Seanie Sugrueto write things down.

For many years, he was content to let word after word take up residence in his head, where they started stringing themselves into sentences that begat a series of siblings that swirled into stories striving to be released.

“I always had a very active imagination, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” he says.

This was not much of a difficulty for him when he was a working-class lad growing up in Tralee, the rural town in County Kerry, Ireland whose claim to fame is hosting the annual Rose of Tralee International Festival.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie’s a working-class lad from Ireland.

“There were no artists around to inspire me,” he says. “I spent a lot of time in the fields surrounding my home by myself.”

So it was that he passed his time until it was time for college. He signed up to study, of all things, civil engineering, a subject he had less than zero interest in.

“Everyone I knew was doing that, but it wasn’t for me,” he says. “I hated being in the classroom. I stayed briefly, and by that I mean two weeks.”

His biggest dream, which of course he never put on paper, was to come to America.

“I always planned this,” he says, adding that an aunt of his lives in the Bronx. “I had been a bartender since I was 14, and I wanted to do that in America, but you can’t drink – or tend bar – until you’re 21, so I had to wait.”

Seanie, a tall man with an alliterative appellation, subtle blue eyes and raven black hair, did some waiting in Edinburgh, where he had friends, while working in construction and in bars. He also lived in  London and the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Once he hit the magic legal age of 21, he made his way to New York, where he took jobs in a trio of Irish bars in the East Village that all had the same owner.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie’s productions have played at The Secret Theatre.

“I had no plan,” he says. “I was going to bartend until I figured it out.”

As it happened, writers like to drink, so Seanie ran into a lot of them.

Precisely when and where did he write his first words?

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie used to bartend at Sweet Afton.

Seanie skillfully skips around the question again and again.

“I’m a writer, after all,” he says. “We do procrastinate.”

Finally, he gets back on track.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie started bartending in Ireland when he was 14.

“At 23, I went to a screenwriting course,” he says. “But I only lasted one week.”

It took six more years for Seanie to start writing, and even then, he says, he really didn’t do it.

“I ran into a guy and pitched an idea I had in my head,” he says. “I watched him write it on his laptop.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie has a set writing schedule.

The work, Catch 22: Based on the Unwritten Story by Seanie Sugrue, became his first film.

That writing/non-writing experience made Seanie realize that he wanted to pen plays.

“I went to the Strand Book Store a lot and just stood there and read,” he says, adding that Neil LaBute’s In a Dark, Dark House is what started him on his stage-writing career. “Sometimes I stayed there and read five to six hours a day; sometimes, if I liked the play, I bought it. I was there so much that I bought a jumper with the Strand name on it because it’s the ‘college’ I went to.”

He finished his first play, Black Me Out!, while producing his Catch 22. By 2015, he had co-founded the Astoria-based production company Locked in the Attic.

These days, the words rush out of Seanie’s brain; thus far, he’s written and directed five additional plays, most of which have played at The Secret Theatre, an Off-Off Broadway venue in Long Island City.

His latest, The 8^th, revolves around two siblings who return home to mark the first anniversary of their father’s death and are drawn into a spirited political debate about the country’s recent legalization of abortion. The work was named best production at the 2020 Origin 1^st Irish Theatre Festival Awards.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie’s shooting his next film in Ireland.

“One of the actors is good friends with Neil LaBute,” Seanie says. “He came to see the play and told me he liked it.”

During that time, Seanie finally finished his debut novel, Cardboard Coffins.

His newest film, Misty Button, which is about two Irish guys in the Bronx who place a proxy bet on a racehorse of that name and pocket the money, has won numerous awards; it’s opening next month.

What with his series of successes, Seanie has all but given up bartending. Now, he concentrates on his writing.

Every weekday, he puts on his headphones, tunes in his custom playlist and taps out his ideas from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each evening, he spends at least an hour editing.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Seanie is the co-founder of Locked in the Attic Productions.

“I enjoy writing,” he says, adding that he also produces and directs. “It doesn’t feel like work.”

He also works on projects for others, through Locked in the Attic Productions.

“I haven’t had much free time,” he says, adding that up until recently he had been working 12-hour days then topping them off with bartending gigs. “I read a lot – it’s like taking my brain to the gym. And I go to the movies, which I justify as research.”

This year, Seanie will be going back home to Ireland to shoot a feature film. He’s also polishing two scripts – one set in Los Angeles and one that takes place in Ireland.

“I’ll keep on writing,” he says. “I want to take things a step up and do everything on a bigger level.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

After Tom Odermatt flips on the fluorescent overhead lights, he heads to the aquariums, where he jokes around with the jocularly striped clownfish, who swim rapidly to the top of the tank to greet him.

He pokes his finger into the water, which, thanks to artificial lighting, is deep blue like the sea, and attracts a cleaner shrimp who goes by the name of Jacques. The crustacean clings to Tom’s appendage, stripping it of parasites.

Next, Tom heads to the back of Tom’s Pet Supply and looks in on the canaries and parakeets and rodents and reptiles.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom’s Pet Supply is on Broadway at 21st Street.

He scoops Artemis, the yellow and orange bearded dragon, into his hands, where the lizard lounges lazily until released back into his glass house.

Tom presents Hazelnut, the little latte-colored mouse, who climbs all over his hand at a frenetic pace, wispy whiskers quivering in excitement.

“Are you afraid of snakes?” he asks as he replaces Hazelnut with Fendi, a petite albino corn snake who coils his buttercream- and tangerine-spotted body around his arm like a tourniquet.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Artemis the bearded dragon.

Little One, the 26-year-old red-footed tortoise who is Tom’s personal pet, isn’t quite as demonstrative.

“She’s shy,” he says. “It took a long time for her to get used to me.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Goldfish out for a swim.

This is how Tom, who’s like a shiny new sports car roaring out of the showroom for the first time, starts every day.

God, how he loves it.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom fell in love with animals when he was 3.

Tom, who is 22, opened Tom’s Pet Supply in the summer of 2019 on the former premises of Petland Discounts, a regional chain that closed after more than a half century in business.

Tom was born and raised around the corner from the Broadway store, which is in the strip mall that features the Bel-Aire Diner, and worked for Petland Discounts while he was studying at Fordham University.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Hazelnut takes a walk.

Tom, who has cherub cheeks and wears his dark locks in a man bun, has a long history with pet stores.

He fell in love with animals when he was 3 and started begging for a puppy shortly thereafter.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom has a degree in sociology.

“I was raised by my mom and grandmother, and although they love animals, they never let me have a puppy,” he says, adding that the death of a dog long before his time left them too heartbroken to get another.

He was, however, allowed to have fish, hermit crabs, turtles, hamsters and bearded dragons.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Discus fish chilling.

“I was really terrible,” he says. “I wanted to go in every pet store I saw, and I would throw a fit if I did not get to go in.”

By the time he was in high school, Tom had become what he calls a frequent pest at Petland Discounts.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom loves being at the store seven days a week.

“I used to come in and bother the manager for a job,” he says. “But you have to be 18 to work with animals, and I wasn’t.”

The closing of Petland Discounts came at an opportune time for Tom: He graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in May and started revamping the store in June.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Fendi giving Tom a hug.

There was much speculation in the neighborhood about the future of the space.

“I kept up with my customers, and one of them called me and said, ‘Did you hear about the new pet store? The owner’s name is Tom, and I think I know who he is. You should apply for a job there.’”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom worked for Petland Discounts through college.

Tom demurred, saying he didn’t think it was necessary for him to do so.

“I told her the new owner was indeed Tom, but not the one she was thinking of,” he says. “When she asked me how I knew, I said, ‘It’s me,’ and she burst out laughing.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Guppies hanging out.

Needless to say, pet owners were thrilled when Tom’s Pet Supply opened in July.

“I took all my savings, and I got some help from my family,” Tom says. “A lot of people don’t think there’s a place for a local pet store, and I don’t agree. People need to see the animals right there in front of them, and they need a place to go where people are knowledgeable to get answers you can’t get by Googling on the Internet.”

Tom and his 7-month-old rescue puppy Duck, whose bed is by the cash register, man the store seven days a week with the help of a full-time manager.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Jacques the cleaner shrimp is on the job.

“I love being here,” Tom says. “People ask me whether I’m tired, but I’m not. It’s so exciting because every day, there’s something new.”

Tom says he has no grand plans – at least not yet – for adding a store or starting a chain.

“I’ve always wanted to work with animals, and I have a degree in sociology, which deals with the interactions of people, so this is the perfect combination,” he says.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Tom’s future is more of the present.

He’s very sure about his future.

“What will I be doing five years from now? This,” he says, as he hangs the cages of parakeets near the front of the store. “What will I be doing 10 years from now? This.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling

A gentle mist is falling as Kevin Patrick Corriganleans into his guitar and starts strumming.

He’s sitting in his galley kitchen, by the window with the faded shamrock decal, as the day goes grey.

Here, by the snow-white stove and refrigerator, Kevin rehearses and records his CDs.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin recording in his kitchen.

He does most of his writing in the room across the hall, whose only significant furnishing is a sofa, or in his bedroom, where he spent the last two years penning Dirty Days, a non-fiction narrative detailing his escapades as a Bleecker Street bouncer and musician in Greenwich Village during the 1980s and 1990s.

Kevin, who was born in Jersey City and raised in Old Bridge, can’t remember a time when he wasn’t writing something, anything, everything.

“I still have stuff I wrote when I was 13,” he says, flipping through a file. “I sometimes use lines or lyrics I wrote at that time.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Since childhood, Kevin has been writing.

Kevin, a gregarious, gentle bull, comes from a six-pack family – he has four sisters and a brother – that revels in its Irish roots.

“My mother is from Longford,” he says. “I grew up listening to Irish music. We made trips there in the summers, and I worked on my grandfather’s farm. She always reminded me that I was Irish.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin’s new book.

Kevin, a church choirboy, didn’t take to the guitar right away; in fact, he tossed his plectrum after only a few chords.

“I was more into writing poetry,” he says, adding that although he was the frontman in a high school garage band, it wasn’t until he was 40 that he taught himself to play bass.

“I forced myself to sit in this kitchen for two years until I got it,” he says.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin’s a freelance sound engineer.

Shortly after graduating from William Paterson University with a degree in communications, Kevin became a fixture in the East Village arts scene, where he was a bouncer at The Red Lion for 15 years.

It’s a funny story how he got that job. He was a wing forward in a rugby club at Seton Hall University, an institution he never attended but his then-girlfriend did.

“I played there three years and was one of the top team scorers,” he says. “One game I scored three times and was on the front page of the school’s newspaper. Nobody ever figured out I wasn’t a student. The bar owner saw my Seton rugby jacket and told me that if I wanted the job, I had to play. I was about 25 and hadn’t worked out for years, but I went to the gym and more than proved myself on the field. I think I would have said I was a player, a coach and a tenured rugby professor to get the job. I was so broke.”

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin makes music in his kitchen.

Through the years, Kevin worked for other bars, as a bouncer and a bartender who loved to tell stories.

One night, a performer he was acquainted with invited him onto the stage to sing.

“It came natural to me,” he says. “I got a standing ovation, maybe because people liked the idea that I was a bartender not a band member.”



He subsequently joined that band, The 4^th Floor, which played happy punk so well that it got a major record deal that led to national tours and opening for the likes of KISS, Alice Cooper and the Scorpions.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Back in the day, Kevin scored a major record deal.

When that band broke up, in 1997, Kevin joined others, including Astoria-centric Begorrah, and began making his living as a freelance sound engineer for major TV networks and news outlets.

“It’s anything but a 9-to-5 job, and I’m on the road a lot,” he says, adding that that’s what he loves about it. “I have a lot of stories to tell about it.”

An assignment once took him and his guitar to Hardy, Arkansas, where during a break, he put on an impromptu show in the hotel parking lot while standing on a picnic table.

“Everybody was dancing,” he says, grinning.

That reminds him of the story he covered in 1999 for Good Morning America about a Kosovo war refugee who gave birth to a son only hours after her U.S. flight to freedom.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin has self-produced five CDs.

“They were having trouble getting the rolling hospital crib over the wires in the studio, and the nurse asked me to take the baby,” Kevin says. “It was the first child born to a Kosovo refugee on our soil, and the father wanted to name him America. He was so small and brittle that I was afraid I was going to crush him.”

Later that day, he found himself at SUNY-Purchase covering a Knicks game.

“I was standing by the bathroom, and Patrick Ewing cursed at me and told me to get out of his way,” Kevin says.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

For many years, Kevin was a bouncer in Greenwich Village.

Still emotionally charged by his interaction with the Kosovo baby, Kevin sprang into action.

“I was just getting ready to punch Ewing in the face when my friend rushed up and stopped me,” he says.

When letters laced with lethal levels of anthrax began arriving in the mailboxes of VIPs and news personalities shortly after 9/11, Kevin found himself the center of attention.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin settled in Astoria 15 years ago.

“I just happened to have been on the scene where three of them were delivered,” he says. “All the people in the media were being screened, and I was called in and  interrogated. When it dawned on me that I was the No. 1 suspect, I said, ‘You guys think I’m the guy? I’d stab the anthrax bomber.’”

Apparently his words, and those of his corroborating colleagues, were convincing, because Kevin was released after about two hours.

Faced with death and destruction headlines on a daily basis, Kevin decided to take a break from the news cycle and returned to work in Bleecker Street bars.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Dreamy-eyed during a solo.

In 2006, he made TV work his full-time freelance gig.

“I only want to make money to make another record,” he says, adding that he’s self-produced five.

Since he finished Dirty Days, he’s been struggling to get an agent and a publisher.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Lyrics to “It’s 3 AM.”

He admits he’s discouraged but says that “I’m never gonna stop – I’m always making shit.”

Even so, he’s taken to writing songs so sad that they bring tears to the eyes.

He starts strumming It’s 3AM, a new tune that was inspired by a friend’s telling him about kids as young as 12 and 13 overdosing on heroin.

Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling

Kevin’s guitar — ready for the next song.

“It’s 3 am when the roar of the phone

Hits the air my heart races

If I don’t pick up, you will still be here with me …”

By the time Kevin reaches the end, his voice, husky and ragged from sorrow, catches.

“I don’t like singing it,” he says.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy A. Ruhling