NYC’s New Hot-Hotel Drag: Crosby Street
The luxury-hotel brand Mondrian will be opening a breezy-looking third location (after L.A. and Miami) in Soho this February, just blocks from another design hot spot, the Crosby. The boutique hotel’s 253 rooms are designed by Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, complete with sandy Mediterranean colors and textures, crisp white linens, and sea-blue ceilings. Former Top Chef contestant and Surf Lodge chef Sam Talbot will man the kitchen at Imperial No. 9, the lobby’s 180-seat local-seafood restaurant (9 Crosby St., nr. Grand St.; 212-554-6120; from $249; now taking reservations).
What’s Playing in Peoria
The scaffolding is finally coming down from the Flatiron Peoria Emporium, the upstate odds-and-ends shop that recently opened up in Manhattan. The quirky apparel, accessories, and housewares store doubles as a walk-through art installation of sorts, with current inventory including furniture fashioned by the Inkwenkwezi tribe of South Africa. The artisans make both political and aesthetic statements with tables, chairs, and ottomans wrought from leftover Mobil and Texaco oil drums. ($155 to $280; 25 E. 20th St., at Broadway; 212-777-3140)
DIY for Kicks
The new screen-printing studio Gowanus Print Lab is planning some interesting courses for 2011, from wallpaper printing to “Make Your Own Band Swag.” First up: a “Print Your Own Converse” workshop. Zebadiah Keneally—a Syracuse printmaking grad—will help you create a template to custom-decorate a pair of Chucks (January 2, noon to 3 p.m.; $110, BYO high-tops; 54 Second Ave., nr. 7th St., Gowanus; 718-788-3930).