by Jonathan Spira

Writing a hotel review during a global pandemic is fraught with peril.  While I felt completely confident in my selection, I wouldn’t wish to cause someone to abandon all coronavirus safeguards and dive back into travel unnecessarily or with reckless abandon.  Then again, I also believe that the overwhelming majority of the magazine’s readers would not do this, so here goes.
The brand new Lloyd, Stamford is a new luxury boutique …

Review and Test Drive: 2021 Cadillac XT6 Sport Platinum

by Jonathan Spira

The Cadillac XT6 is the largest vehicle in the automaker’s XT series, which offers three crossovers that include the smaller XT5 and XT4.   The only vehicle Cadillac offers that is larger than the XT6 is the Escalade.
Introduced at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the seven-seater went on sale as a 2020 model later that year.  It is the third of three vehicles announced by Cadillac in …

Photo Essay: New York Botanical Garden ‘Spotlight on Orchids’

by Paul Riegler

The pandemic has meant many changes for New York’s cultural institutions, among them the New York Botanical Garden.
Each year, the garden presents a highly regarded orchid exhibition but, amidst the pandemic-induced restrictions currently in effect in the New York area and the terrible toll that the coronavirus has taken, it is presenting a more limited exhibition – ‘Spotlight on Orchids’ – in the Enid Haupt Conservatory, an Italian Renaissance building …

Pandemic Restaurant Review: Katz’s Delicatessen, New York City

by Jonathan Spira

This isn’t Katz’s Delicatessen’s first pandemic. The New York landmark, which opened in 1888 across the street from present location, moved just in time for the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which it managed to survive.
Despite the repeated openings and closings of indoor dining in New York City, Katz’s has remained open, sometimes just for take out and delivery, and now, once again, open for indoor dining, albeit with a 25% …

Dear Agony Aunt: Your Advice and Etiquette Questions Answered

by Aunt Agatha

For over a century, British and American magazines and newspapers have run advice and etiquette columns ranging from Miss Manners to Dear Abby to Savage Love. ,The questions in these columns range from “How can I get my annoying seatmate on this flight to shut up and let me watch my movie?” to “Where should I seat my ex-husband’s illegitimate gay son’s ex-lover at my daughter’s fourth wedding?”
Sherlock Holmes, as alert …

Monday is Washington’s Birthday and Presidents Day: Here is What’s Open and What’s Closed

by Anna Breuer
Monday is Washington’s Birthday and Presidents Day: Here is What’s Open and What’s Closed

Tomorrow, Monday, February 15, is Washington’s Birthday, a national holiday in the United States in honor of the country’s first president, George Washington.
In Hawaii, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and seven other states, it’s stylized as Presidents’ Day, while in Alaska, Idaho, Nebraska, and five other states, it’s President’s Day.  Three states – Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon – leave out the apostrophe entirely, calling the holiday Presidents Day, and that’s not …

How to Mask Like Dr. Fauci

by Jesse Sokolow

Fauci watchers may have noticed that the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, who serves as President Biden’s chief medical adviser, has appeared at news conferences and on television interviews wearing two masks.
The simple face mask serves a crucial function in the effort to contain and eliminate the coronavirus: it serves as a barrier that helps prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others, and it also, to a lesser extent, prevents …

Photo Essay: The Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station in N.Y.C.

by Jonathan Spira

The $1.6 billion Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall opened at dawn on New Year’s Day, replete with the steel, marble, and glass that is associated with train stations of another, perhaps more gilded, age.
“It is a testament and a monument to the public,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in announcing the opening of Moynihan Train Hall, although he needn’t have said a word as the reviews on social media …