Veronika Sherman opened her new optometry practice, Soho Optique, just a two-minute walk from her home.
“I wanted it to be nearby,” she said.
Sherman’s short commute belies the long distance she traveled decades ago, at age 14, from the Soviet Union to Queens.
“My parents didn’t see a future in Russia for me,” she said. “We came for a better quality of life and a better education.”
Her family’s hopes were more fully realized a month ago when Sherman opened Soho Optique near the corner of Glen Cove Road and George Street in Roslyn Heights.
It’s a full-service optometry practice owned and operated by Sherman, who offers services ranging from eyeglass prescription to disease diagnosis and treatment. Its hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Thursdays, when it is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is closed on Sundays.
She named the store Soho Optique because its design as well as its selection of frames “bring Manhattan to Long Island,” she said.
Sherman said her initial adjustment to life in the United States was “scary” but became easier once she “picked up English.”
It was also helpful that she grew up in the multicultural neighborhood of Kew Garden Hills in Queens, she said.
She said she realized she wanted to be an optometrist during her first year at Queens College.
“I liked the idea of giving people better vision,” she said.
After graduating with a double degree in premedical sciences and speech pathology, she attended the SUNY College of Optometry in midtown Manhattan.
She described the school as “very competitive.” There were just 70 students in her graduating class.
She spent one year of residency at the East New York Diagnostic and Treatment Center, where she said she gained “huge exposure to different eye diseases and eye conditions you don’t see on a regular basis.”
Ten years ago, she opened a private practice in Richmond Hill, Queens, with another optometrist, Dr. Andrey Kessler. She still works a couple days a week at that office, she said.
This year has not only brought Sherman a new optometry practice but a new child, Emma, who was born eight months ago.
“I tried checking her eyes, but it’s hard with a tiny baby,” she joked. Her 8-year-old son Mark has good eyesight, she said.
Sherman’s husband, Vladimir, works as a delegate at the New York State Nurses Association.
Sherman’s parents still live in Kew Garden Hills, where they are musicians.
Sherman said her parents didn’t find it surprising when she told them, many years ago, that she wanted to be an optometrist.
“They were very pleased and excited,” she said.
