The archway alcoves, candles, bare floors, recessed ceiling spotlights, up-front bar and open kitchen remain, and so does its waterside setting.
There are no paintings on the brick-red walls, only pools of light cast by ceiling spotlights, accompanied by funereal organ music by Bach played at considerable volume.
Her blonde hair glittered like gold shavings in the direct beam of one of the ceiling spotlights.
The drama is heightened by hand-rubbed Venetian plaster walls tinted silver to bounce the light (the "clouds" also disguise institutional high-hat ceiling spotlights).
The wall sconces and ceiling spotlights create a dim ambiance, true to the Cornelia Street locale.
Among other happy contractors was Robert See, whose company, See Factor Industry of Long Island City, Queens, was hired for nearly $300,000 by AJ Contracting to put up the 90 tons of ceiling spotlights and rigging and work with other specialists on effects.
The walls are cool and black, the banquettes and Breuer chairs inviting, and ceiling spotlights set off moody atmospheric charcoal drawings.
Knowing the Kabakovs' previous creations of fictional gallery or museum spaces, you expect to find imitation old masters or Soviet Social Realist paintings on the walls, but here you find nothing but pools of light cast by 11 ceiling spotlights.
The castlelike restaurant, with its sweeping staircase, flowers and ceiling spotlights, conjures up images of knights and fair maidens.