At home with Christopher Columbus.

No, you can’t buy the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria. But how about a price-slashed Mitchell Gold white leather side chair? Or a deeply discounted 48-inch Samsung LED TV?

Last fall I wrote about Christopher Columbus’s living room – the one artist Tatzu Nishi designed up in the air around the famed Christopher Columbus statue (you could visit the living room, see Gaetano Russo’s towering  marble statue up close and personal, then cross the street and gaze down upon Columbus’s temporary abode from the lounge on the 35^th floor of the Mandarin Oriental New York).

This morning the Public Art Fund launched an online tag sale of the contents of the great explorer’s living room. Demand for the sofas, side tables and even candlesticks was so fierce the site crashed briefly. (more…)

Living large.

In the immortal words of Jo March in Little Women, “Christopher Columbus!”

There he was in all his statuesque glory, standing a dizzying 13 feet tall in the bird’s eye living room conceived, constructed (and decorated) by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi in the center of Columbus Circle.

Since September 20, visitors have climbed up, up, up six flights of metal stairs to the pink-wallpapered lair where Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo’s 1892 marble rendering of Italy’s most famous sailor stands atop a coffee table littered with copies of The FT and The New York Times.  This week it was our turn (admission is free but by reservation), and we made the climb on a drizzly day.

Nishi creates short-term artworks by reimaging, and recontextualizing, public monuments in unexpected ways. In Villa Victoria, a pop-up hotel suite built around a statue of Queen Victoria in Liverpool, guests could actually spend the night. (more…)

Fashions inside.

Once again New York Fashion Week breezes in, and suddenly Manhattan’s Upper West Side is uncharacteristically chic – at least until September 13.

The temporary white Mercedes Benz cube in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park is the epicenter. More than 70 designers will show including Michael Kors, Nanette Lepore, Charlotte Ronson, J Mendel — and Tracy Reese, who designed the sleeveless rose brocade dress worn by Michele Obama for her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Anyone who takes all that in deserves a drink — or lunch — a short walk from the cube.  A sampling of nearby hotels stand at the ready.

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The Four Seasons.

Not long ago Trip Advisor posted its crowd-sourced list of the top hotels in the US. New York City fared badly with not one property in the top 25.

Another day, another survey. AAA has released its 2012 list of  Five Diamond hotels and restaurants, and New York City cleaned up with eight hotels and one hotel restaurant landing the coveted diamonds, the goldest star AAA’s professional raters award. Only Las Vegas scored higher in the hotel category, with a nod for ten properties. (more…)