SPOTTED: The Boys of GOSSIP GIRL Attending the New York Fashion Week Finale at Bryant Park

Actors PENN BADGLEY and ED WESTWICK attended the Tommy Hilfiger 2010 Fashion Show, which closed the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Bryant Park tonight. Both actors currently star in the CW's hit show "GOSSIP GIRL," based on the tremendously popular book series about privileged teenagers in New York City. Penn Badgley currently stars as Dan Humphrey, while the British actor Ed Westwick stars as Chuck Bass. 

The tents that have billowed over fashion's elite at New York Fashion Week for 17 years are coming down for good after the finale show by Tommy Hilfiger. The semiannual event moves from Bryant Park to a plaza within Lincoln Center in September.

Safer Sex and the City: NYC Condom Package Art

NEW YORK, WE'VE GOT YOU COVERED! NEW YORK'S HOTTEST NEW WRAPPER. These appeared on print ads for the New York City Condom when it was launched on February 14, 2007. The free NYC condom distribution program was initiated throughout the city to fight HIV and AIDS. Funded by New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the NYC Condom is the first municipally branded condom in the country. The city-wide media campaign in the form of subway ads, radio spots, launch parties and street teams distributing NYC condoms throughout the city, was very successful. The condoms photographed above (original and current designs) were obtained from the Kenneth Cole store at Grand Central Terminal.

This year, the NYC condom is getting a new design through the NYC Condom Package Design Contest. Creative New Yorkers submittted designs and the people of New York will get to pick their favorite design for the new, special edition NYC condom package. To vote online, visit the NYC Condom Package Design Contest website. Online voting ends on February 28.

Shown below are images of the finalists (submitted by Luis Acosta, Yujin Lee, Virgil Alderson, Gene Lambert and Russell Greenberg) as they appear on the official website:

Playing Paparazzo Outside the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tent at Bryant Park

Since 1993,  the big white tent in BRYANT PARK has been the home of New York FASHION WEEK. A prolonged dispute between the designers and the park management, however, makes the ongoing event (Fall 2010 Collections) the last Fashion Week show in Bryant Park. In the fall, Fashion Week will move to Lincoln Center. Yesterday, I joined the other photographers, professionals, photo enthusiasts and tourists alike in snapping photos outside the tent. For most people who were outside, fashion probably doesn't matter. Being excited to see celebrities and fashion models (even though we don't know their names), and being bemused by the outfits were enough reasons to drop by and play paparazzo.

Chinatown Rings In the Year of the Tiger

Today marks the first day of the 2010 Lunar New Year. Following the traditional firecracker festival, colorful lion dance groups marched down the main streets of Chinatown including Mott Street where I made these images. The lion dancers stopped at local businesses and restaurants where they received traditional holiday red envelopes containing good luck Lunar New Year money.

The Lovers

THE LOVERS (India; sandstone) is part of the Southeast Asian Art permanent collection on exhibit on the Second Floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Times Square Arts: ICE HEART

Earlier today, designers from MOORHEAD AND MOORHEAD finished installing a 10-foot tall sculpture called ICE HEART made of masonry-scaled blocks of ice in Duffy Square. The design won the invitational competition to create a public sculpture to celebrate Valentine's Day in Times Square. The competition was juried by representatives from the Museum of Modern Art, The Queens Museum of Art, Performa, and NYC Parks. 

From the Times Square Alliance website:

“We are thrilled to be continuing the tradition, inaugurated last year, of bringing public art to Times Square during the Valentine’s Day holiday,” said Times Square Alliance President Tim Tompkins.  “This year’s selection, Ice Heart, will become an immediate, albeit transient, landmark for visitors, tourists and New Yorkers alike who can stop by during different times of day to experience this remarkable sculpture.”   

“The Ice Heart will constantly change as its crystalline form picks up the lights, colors and chaos of the Times Square – we look forward to the kaleidoscopic effect, and think visitors will enjoy it as well,” commented Granger Moorhead.  

Online visitors can watch the sculpture change in Times Square and send their loved ones an electronic Valentine at www.theiceheart.com. 

In the fall of 2009, the Times Square Alliance invited four NYC design firms to develop proposals for a Valentine for Times Square.  The architects were asked to envision a celebratory 3-D structure with a strong visual presence during the day, that in the evening would be illuminated.  The work was also encouraged to accommodate public interaction including photography of visitors in front of the sculpture. 

The work of Robert Moorhead and Granger Moorhead, two brothers who run a New York-based architecture and industrial design practice, has been widely exhibited and published, both in the United States and abroad. They were included in the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum’s 2006 National Design Triennial, and named Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York in 2008.

The sculpture will be constructed by Okamoto Studio, a NYC-based artist collective founded by the father-son team of Takeo and Shintaro Okamoto, which has produced one-of-a-kind sculptures in ice that have been installed in venues from the Rockefeller Center to the runways of Fashion Week at Bryant Park. The structural engineering firm is Robert Silman Associates, which has participated in arts related projects throughout New York City.  The lighting, a key element to bringing the sculpture alive in the evening, is by Tillett Lighting Design Inc., an award-winning firm specializing in the illumination of landscape and public space.

The Ice Heart was selected by the Art Review Committee of the Times Square Alliance.  The committee includes Barry Bergdoll, MoMA, Tom Finkelpearl, Queens Museum of Art, RoseLee Goldberg, Performa; Cora Cahan, The New 42nd Street, Marvin Davis, Davis Reality and Jennifer Lantzas, NYC Parks.

Visitors to Ice Heart can also take advantage of the neighborhood-wide “Free Love in Times Square” promotion.  The Times Square Alliance has teamed up with local restaurants, hotels, retailers and entertainment attractions to offer tourists and New Yorkers alike special deals around the holiday.  Extending through March 31, the offers allow visitors to take advantage of even more amenities and attractions in the area.