Former Condé Nast cafeteria dodges demolition

NEW YORK — Condé Nast's last magazines at 4 Times Square — Vanity Fair and Bon Appétit — moved downtown in January, leaving the old Magazine Heaven spaces empty. That included closing down the most architecturally ambitious cafeteria in the world: the swoopy titanium-and-glass room designed by Frank Gehry when the company moved in a decade ago. In 1999, it was the room everyone in publishing was angling to visit for lunch; jokes abounded about the calorie-free meals consumed by the young ladies of Vogue and Allure, and contrasting the mediocre cooking with the fab environs. It's only one of three examples of his work in town, the others being his Spruce Street apartment tower and the IAC Building in Chelsea*. Now the room sits, closed and silent.