Between Thursday and Saturday, New York's art scene jump-started back to life Downtown and in Chelsea. On the west side of the island, a human wave of art lovers and scene makers converged on the sliver of Manhattan west of 9^th Avenue from 18th to 28^th Streets to check out what's new.

The biggest stir of the evening, perhaps, was generated by the exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery on 25^th Street. "The Park," photographs by Kohei Yoshiyuki, were taken in three of Tokyo's parks during the 1970s. Yoshiyuki used infrared film and flash to document couples on nighttime trysts, as well as spectators who gathered there to watch, and often participate in these clandestine couplings. The grainy, black-and-white pictures embody a sense of loneliness and desperation rarely captured on film.

On the opposite side of the block, below the High Line, an outdoor art space was opened this summer by Bard College's Hessel Museum of Art. On display in the former parking lot at 508 West 25^th Street through September 16th is an installation by British artist Martin Creed, which incorporates 15-foot-high neon letters that spell out "small things."

At 547 West 27^th Street, home to a multitude of galleries including Aperture Foundation and Foley Gallery, I visited Paul Sharpe Projects. Sharpe, who represents contemporary painters, recently opened this new space in a corridor cul-de-sac with an arched window offering a gleaming cityscape vista. The reason, he said, was to give his artists a place to show site-specific experimental works. The space, which is open all hours that the building itself is open, is currently showing unique woodblock prints by painter John Rosis.

Since last fall the Chelsea art district has expanded a bit more to the north. On 28^th Street, west of the Chelsea Mini-Storage, Point of View Gallery moved in next door to Black-and-White Gallery. Both show works by emerging artists, with photography the focus at POV. On view through October 9th is "Familiar," an uncanny series of suburban landscape photographs by Brad Moore, who is enjoying an impressive calendar of exhibits in his first year in the galleries. Next month, POV will present "Myths," large-scale images by avant-garde fashion photographer Heimo Schmidt.

The most notable new element in the landscape, the Chelsea Arts Tower, at 545 West 25^th Street, was notably dark that night; its lone occupant, China Square Gallery, scheduled its opening for Friday in order to draw the fashion and finance crowd that tend to flock there. The sleek gallery-and-office condo building was designed by Chelsea-based architects Kossar & Garry, in association with HOK, and boasts a soaring entry designed by noted museum architect, Richard Gluckman. In October, Marlborough Gallery will open its new 10,000-square-foot space on the first two floors with an exhibition by sculptor Tom Otterness.

Above: Scenes from Mike Nelson's installation at the Old Essex Street Market.

The Downtown art scene offered something special of its own on Saturday, courtesy of Creative Time. The non-profit arts organization, now in its 30^th year of presenting site-specific public art projects, opened its season with an installation by British artist Mike Nelson at the old Essex Street Market. Here the artist transformed the disused interior spaces to take visitors on an unexpected journey through reconstructed rooms, passageways and environments assembled from salvaged material he scavenged throughout the tri-state area.

After signing a liability waiver, we entered through an unmarked door into the dank remains of a Chinese restaurant. Drawn into a highly charged atmosphere of believable and at times disquieting architectural spaces, we were encouraged by Creative Time volunteers to explore the artist's practice of inventing a hyper-reality occasionally shocked by reality itself, creating a kind of metaphor for today's geopolitical unrest.

Above: Scenes from Art Parade 2007. All photos: Peggy Roalf.

In the afternoon, Deitch Projects, Creative Time and Paper magazine offered the third annual Art Parade, which brought a wallop of fun to West Broadway. All-out artistic mayhem was met by all-out regimental rigor, courtesy of Newark's Malcom X. Shabazz H.S. marching band. Holland Carter, writing in today's New York Times, said, "It was like a mini-Rose Bowl pageant, but with men in heels, a ukulele orchestra, trash-bag attire, a no-nukes float, a nonstop food fight and the director of a major New York museum, hair dyed blue, barreling down West Broadway." (The only major New York museum director we know of who made the scene is The Brooklyn Museum's Arnold Lehman.)

One of the more bizarre items to be picked up by the fashion press last week was this: the very downtown New Museum of Contemporary Art, set to open on December 1^st, would be represented until then by pop-up stores in Bloomingdale's Manhattan locations. On a Friday evening stroll through the flagship on Lex and 59^th, I was hard pressed to find any such thing. After asking around, though, I was directed to a serpentine bookcase about 25 feet long, hidden away on the second floor. Offerings included some art books, soft sculptures, and arty tchotchkies. Oh well, as long as they get the name right...

But the fall art season opening wouldn't be complete without The New York Times Annual Fall Arts Preview. This year's edition for museum exhibitions, compiled by Benjamin Genocchio, runs across six pages, covering events nationwide from now through April.