(FORTUNE Magazine) – New York, the city that never weeps, seems to be in a bit of a funk. Good for me: I'm shopping for a new CEO (the last one never returned from doing yoga in Costa Rica--let the downward dog get a taste of downward mobility), and there are candidates aplenty.

The magnificent Andreas Gursky show at MoMA got me thinking. Gursky makes huge photographs--huge in scope and huge in drama. They're like postcards from a few years ago, when the future looked big. Will we ever allow ourselves to think big again?

I'm at Chambers, a new party space passing itself off as a hotel. It's the "soft opening" (a vulgar phrase, that). Like the city these days, it feels small...and I don't just mean the rooms. Though they should consider renaming it Compartments.

The upshot of all this economic gloom is that it's easier to get a restaurant reservation. Even at the deservedly hot Town, here in the hotel. It's a terrific place to live large, if only for an evening.