NYTimes.com: The Come-Hither Lobby

ENTER the lobby of the Platinum -- a sparkling glass-and-steel popsicle of a condominium that rises 43 stories above the circus lights of Eighth Avenue -- and you may think you've stumbled into the lair of James Bond's latest big-screen foe.

Twenty-six feet of roaring flames run along one wall, a deconstructed fireplace whose orange embers dance behind a blue-hued sheet of glass. Enormous plasma television screens stare down from stark white walls. Geometric furniture sits surrounded by a bubbling moat that circumnavigates the space.