Tom Johansmeyer
Manhattan - http://migrantblogger.wordpress.com
Tom Johansmeyer is a New York-based writer specializing in travel, cigars, art and finance.
Tom Johansmeyer
Manhattan - http://migrantblogger.wordpress.com
Tom Johansmeyer is a New York-based writer specializing in travel, cigars, art and finance.

The Upper West Side of Manhattan was once again home to an exciting and unique art exhibition last week. 25CPW, a temporary art gallery occupying a vacant retail space on Central Park West hosted an art show for a unique group within the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the guards. It turns out that some of the people protecting the masterpieces on the other side of Central Park also like to create, and from what I saw on Thursday night, when I attended the opening, they are pretty damned good at it.
Three high-profile London hotels could wind up in the hands of the government soon. The Berkeley, Claridges and Connaught, all owned by Maybourne Hotel Group, are at risk of being controlled by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), due to the terms of a €16 billion loan. And, there wil probably be more.
Lucian Freud is coming back to the Centre Pompidou for the first time since his first retrospective was held in 1987 – at the same museum. Historically, these exhibitions have been great for collectors of Freud's work, according to Artprice.
The annual Habanos festival ended Friday with a million-dollar cymbal crash. The week-long event attracted cigar merchants, smokers and collectors from around the world to select, sample and savor ... all leading up to purchases, of course. The main attraction was an auction of ornate cedar and mahogany humidors packed with hecho a mano cigars, ultimately fetching $1.09 million. Hundreds may have attended, but only a small fraction walked away with that level of satisfaction.
Every year, Avo Uvezian releases a new cigar for his birthday ... and it's always incredible. My first encounter with Avo's birthday cigar was the Avo 80, celebrating eight decades of the master himself. Last year, it was the Campanero, which may have been better than the Avo 80, though I haven't had the latter in a few years, so a comparison is impossible. This year, Avo turns 84, and he's celebrating his birthday with the Avo Limited Edition LE10.
With economic conditions beginning to turn, the elite are finally being freed from the prison of commercial air travel. After a severe 2008 and 2009, it looks like the private aviation business is getting ready to come back, with research firm Argus showing 5.3 percent growth from January last year to January this year. According to Flexjet president Fred Reid, there was a "very distinct, small, consistent upturn in demand" that began late in 2009. 

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