Looking for Beauty in the Age of Design

Where, in the month of February, can a New Yorker turn in search of beauty? To the window, maybe, but at her own peril; what the skies giveth, in the form of a delicate Monday-afternoon coating of snow on sidewalks and branches, they taketh away by apoplectic, skyscraper-shaking rainstorm on Tuesday morning. Safer to bet instead on synthetic splendors, like the ones parading down Fashion Week runways and onto our screens, or on display in the city’s museums, which in the late winter serve a parallel purpose to the one Central Park does in more optimistic weather, doubling as collective urban living rooms when it’s too dismal to contemplate a trip outside.