Nancy Ruhling

Eartha Thompson-Washington sparkles in the sunlight. Her tunic, the color of blushing pink rosebuds, is studded with mini-mirrors and gold sequins.

She bought it in Bangladesh while she was on one of her missionary trips. Every time she looks at it, it brings her back to the utter poverty of...

It's noon when Catherine and Frank Terrizzi walk through the front door of Terrizzi Pastry Shop.

They're not here every day any more, but they can be counted upon to appear every Saturday at this time.

They are the closest thing the shop has to royalty....

Every day, Jim Pignetti sees the past in the present. He can't help but be reminded of the way things were because his business, Metalmen, is only four and a half blocks from the house he grew up in.

He and his older brother lived there with...

A little boy in a bright red T-shirt rushes into the living room like Thomas the Train, singing and dancing himself silly until he collapses, hysterical, onto the coffee table.

Sylvia Ramsaywak laughs her head off. This is her 7-year-old son, Jude, and this is his way of entertaining guests.

It starts with a rape in outer space, but Starfighter really begins in this earthly living room, where we find Shakespeare on the bookshelf, Star Wars on the TV console and HamletMachine on the sofa.

In the heat of battle, Cain, the dark fighter, forces himself on Abel, his pretty-boy...

Elena Kess is wearing 6-inch lizard-skin stilettos the color of a moonless midnight. She's so high off the ground that she's tiptoeing rather than walking across 30th Avenue.

Even if you don't notice the heels, you can't miss Elena, who's as bold as a chorus of exclamation points.

Skin-tight black...

Chris Bogia opens the door and cranks up '60s rock on the radio. He likes to listen to music when he works in his studio.

The art he does -- gluing bits of yarn onto his paintings -- requires a steady hand and a mindless head.

The space...

For Camille Pisciotta, this is just like any other day, except that it isn't. By the time she's unlocked the gate at her Pampered Poodle Palace, her big blue eyes are tearing up.

"I was never a wimp my entire life," she says in apology. "You couldn't get me to...

Espresso. Giuseppe Viterale never starts or ends the day without a cup of it. He fires up a little gas burner, spoons in the ground coffee and puts the aluminum one-cup pot atop the steady blue flame.

"This is like a religious ritual for me," he says.

As...

One day Anna Kril stepped into the shower, and her life fell apart. Which, in the end, was a blessing, because her life didn't end, it simply moved on to a new beginning.

Her life, you see, was perfect. She had a loving husband and two little daughters who adored...

At the end of the corridor, there's a wall of glass tile that looks like the sparkling waters of a stream struck by sun. It leads to a waiting room of charcoal-colored chairs and bouquets of fresh flowers arranged in vases.

In this serene space stands Alma Mesquita, a tower...

It's not pretty, and that's the beauty of it. Miwako Kimura's workshop, for that is what she calls it, was meant to be a bedroom. It can fit a double bed but not much more.

Sun streams through its only window, illuminating the cardboard boxes that hug the walls,...

It all started in Spain, and like many things in life, David Tepper didn't plan any of it. Fate or God or the universe pushed and pulled him in different directions until he found himself sitting behind the check-out desk at Nook n' Crannie, the second-hand shop that gives alcoholics...

"Going out of business (3/3/12)."

These words, which forever alter the futures of Tom Park and his six employees, are scrawled in cursive on a piece of lime-green cardboard taped to the front door of Johnny on the Spot.

Johnny on the Spot has been on this spot at...

Michael Serao isn't wearing a suit. This would not be worth noting were it not for the fact that Michael is a banker, whose ranks are most suited to suits.

His uniform -- striped tie and shirt, black slacks and baby-blue sweater that matches his eyes -- suits him and...

I moved to Astoria on a February day, when the daffodils were in full bloom and the snow was on the red, red roses.

It wasn't just my front yard that was blossoming. Up and down the block, the mini gardens were filled with summer flowers in winter: black-eyed Susans,...

Pull open the drapes! Betty Gelb wants to see the sunshine. She's as excited as a kid going to the circus because she's opened her eyes to another day.

She's pushing 102, and, hey, you never know. She pulls out her crocheting -- she's making a red and black scarf...

NAILS.

That's what the neon sign says in capital letters the color of pale-pink petals. Wrapped in its rosy glow, Emily Zhang is sitting demurely like a mannequin at her little station inside the plate-glass window waiting for her first customer.

When the door opens, her baby-doll hands with...

On the Near West Side of Chicago, there used to be an annual saint's feast on the grounds of a Roman Catholic church.

It was the early 1960s, and Josephine Traversa, the baby of the four-child family, was only 3 or 4.

She and her mother were standing in a...

She had to work late last night and didn't get to bed until after 2 a.m. So it's coffee that Joanna Psoroyannis goes in search of. That, she hopes, will open her doe-like mocha eyes.

Model tall, she's a Greek goddess cloaked in black from the top of her turtleneck...