Bottom right: me. Middle: Christopher Columbus. What's next, a laundry room with the Statue of Liberty's head in the dryer?? Now back to the beginning....

If you're not an NYC person, Columbus Circle is right at the corner of Central Park, right in the middle of everything. (It's also where Travis Bickle took Betsy for pie and coffee.) At the center of the circle is a 13-foot statue of Columbus atop a 70-foot pedestal. A few weeks ago Chan told me about a two-month long art installation where they'd have a living room built around the top of the statue, making it feel like Columbus is a piece of furniture in an actual room. Freakin' cool, right? So we made our free online reservations, and yesterday was our day to get in line and make the climb.

First we stopped inside the Time-Warner Center to get some wide shots of the whole deal. Chan told me the bathrooms on the third floor had TVs in the mirrors so I got this pic first.

Here's the circle looking east along Central Park South. You can see the scaffolding/staircases and the living room on top. This view normally looks like this (without the renovations).

After waiting behind the most obnoxious parents/toddlers combo, we finally got to start the climb to the top. Here's the pedestal from the stairs.

There was one more wait at the top of the stairs while they let the room clear out a little. So I got this shot looking up Broadway (left) and Central Park West, home of Miss Dana Barrett's apartment.

And just to the right of that, the vast expanse of Central Park.

And now, without further captioning, here are a bunch of shots from inside "the room." Remember, this a totally fake room 70 feet off the ground....








Yes, that girl is doing her Columbus impression. And you can see Chan in at least one of these. I love the one of the two people looking up from the couch.

And this is looking back down 8th Avenue from one of the windows. This is what Columbus looks at every day.

And on our way out the other side, here's Central Park South, home of tortured horses. I guess the reservations are filling up quickly and I think it ends in November, so go do it. You can get there a little before your reserved half-hour, they don't care. And you can spend 15-30 minutes up there, but I didn't see anybody get nailed for too much loitering. Happy (coincidental) Columbus Day, everybody! Please don't go claiming anything that's not yours for Spain. Thank you.