The show, "Let There Be Light," is a collaboration between gallery owner Mark Miller and partners Dan Barasch and James Ramsey, who dreamed up the Low Line, which is something of a LES companion—or rejoinder—to Chelsea's much-loved High Line. The two men are at work garnering support at the moment.

“This project at its heart has a fantasy element, and I think the images that we’ve put out so far have captured people’s imaginations,” said Mr. Ramsey, an architect. "We’re proposing a landmark that’s getting people to dream a little bit."

Mr. Barasch estimates that it will cost $20 million to convert the 60,000-foot underground space into a park, although he and Mr. Ramsey are still working, through research analysis and collaboration with experts, like Cambridge-based engineering company ARUP, toward pinning down a more exact number.

The pair brought their project to the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, where they met Mr. Miller, who serves as its president. The exhibition was the dealer's idea, and will include prints of the artwork for sale as a fundraising effort.

“I went after them!" Mr. Miller said. "I see the potential in this."

The exhibition, which is on view through April 29, is as much about reaching out to the local  community as it is about showing off the aesthetic appeal of the park. The creators are all aware of how long a project like this can take, especially as they look back upon the tedious process that was the funding and construction of the High Line, which has cost $152 million so far—the final section, at the West Side Rail Yards, is still under construction.

“It’s absolutely essential to us that we maintain people’s excitement levels,” said Mr. Ramsey, “and we’ve constructed an outline of how we want to accomplish that, with a series of public events and displays to engage people, and to make this something that’s exciting in a sustained way. This gallery exhibit is just one small portion of it.”

Mr. Miller, who is preoccupied with the park’s practical applications and economic value for the community, held a special reception for area merchants and property owners before the exhibit's official opening.

“I’m assuming the park would be free and open to the public," the dealer said, "so there would have to be some kind of commercial activity going on down there.”

Mr. Miller is an interesting mix of pragmatist and dreamer. He’s filled with idealistic enthusiasm, and although none of his plans for the future of the park have been set in stone (his sentences often began, “It would be cool if…”), he may bring the park success from the sheer number of his ideas. In a way, he’s predicting problems (what happens when it isn’t sunny? how will maintenance costs be covered?) before they develop into actual setbacks.

“It has to be more than an underground park,” he said. “I’m for an entertainment area, a place for theater or fashion shows. And if it rains? No problem!”

Mr. Ramsey is looking to whip up local support. “That particular pocket of the LES, despite the fact that it’s one of the richest cultural landmarks in America, it’s been historically overlooked by planners, and as a result it has a paucity of open green space,” he said. “So I think that creating something like this, which is both a public space and a landmark, is something for residents to find useful and to be proud of.”

The creators have been plugging the potential boost for businesses, the much-needed green space and the role of the park as a cultural landmark as the major selling points in their community meetings. Along with the Lower East Side BID, they’ve spoken to Community Board 3 and the Tenement Museum, which they hope will collaborate on an educational component of the park, given the site's rich history.

“I think that they are very respectful of the community,” said Dominic Pisciotta, head of Community Board 3, “and they are really trying to make sure that there’s support for it, which is a smart thing to do. There are definitely projects where people don’t even think of talking to the community.”

Nearly every major development project in the city has had to deal with at least minor opposition, but if such a group exists for the Low Line, it isn’t active—perhaps because the organizers have been so thorough in their outreach (though they haven't spoken with the mole people), or because it still doesn't feel like a definite possibility.

Community Board 3 has not yet endorsed the project, and Mr. Pisciotta doesn’t have the unbridled enthusiasm of Mr. Miller, but he did admit to being intrigued, and noticed that much of the community seemed to be as well. “The feeling on the board is that before we take a position, we want to see if it’s technically feasible,” he said. “There was definitely a supportive sentiment in the room, but we just want to feel things out a little more.”

All involved acknowledged that the park would be a big change, a shiny emblem of modern technology and innovation in a neighborhood that holds much of its intrigue in its connections to the past. Dan Barasch, who was with communications company PopTech before he quit his job to work full time on the Low Line, is convinced that the final development plans for the park would be better if, like the High Line and perhaps to an even greater degree, they maintained both the personality and the historical significance of the space.

“There're all these historical remnants in the architecture,” he said of the underground space. “There are cobblestones, rail tracks, elevated ceilings and the places on the ceiling where the trolleys were attached. Then there’s graffiti and all this other evidence that the place has been abandoned for 60 years. We’re thinking about how all of that can be brought into the future, together with the solar technology.”

That technology, which on its surface seems bombastic to the point of science fiction (sunlight underground?), combined with a lively park atmosphere, may very well attract droves of  visitors to the area, boosting retail businesses.

Mr. Miller has been promoting tourism as a major benefit to the project, both for the Lower East Side and for New York as a whole. “I could see people getting on a plane from Europe, staying in a hotel and spending money, all to see this new underground park,” he said.

But if the Lower East Side becomes another Times Square, residents will not be happy.

“Tourism wasn’t discussed in depth at the meeting, but people questioned what type of visitors this would bring, and would this be something that would serve the community, or would it be such a huge destination that it would crowd it out,” said Mr. Pisciotta. “It could change the community in ways we can’t yet foresee.”

Another organization that has yet to be convinced, and needs to be, is the MTA, which owns the space, and is under contractual obligation to generate the highest possible value for their real estate.

“They’re not ready to officially endorse us, and we aren’t ready to officially ask for endorsement,” Mr. Barasch said.

He mentioned the 2nd Avenue subway and the other infrastructure projects that the MTA brags about in their subway ads as evidence that the organization has too many other things to think about to be working on the Low Line project when it’s at such an early stage. The creators will not be asking the MTA for funding, but they will return to them to ask for endorsement once they’ve finalized their plan, which consists of assessing legal and feasibility issues, as well as courting partnerships, corporate supporters, private donors, and a leadership team that can allow them to move forward with development.

“This is not just a PR and visibility play for us,” said Mr. Barasch, of the gallery exhibition. “We are going to sort of go away and do all this work over the summer. All the unsexy work, the underbelly, of coming up with a concrete proposal. We need a real answer to the question of how much this is going to cost. We need a real answer to the question of how much benefit it will bring to the community in financial terms and in terms of cultural value.”

Janet Mock.

The event extended all the way up a spiral staircase to the bridal and couture displays on the third floor, which had wooden desks and luxurious armchairs in the center of the room because, as a fellow Observer remarked, you need to sit down before they can tell you the prices.

After mistaking a bejeweled seashell for one of Yurman’s newest belts in the men’s collection (“it’s part of the display,” explained the sales attendant), we ran into Janet Mock, People staff writer, transgender activist and GLAAD Awards co-chair.

“To amplify our voice as an LGBT community, and bring us all together, it’s an amazing experience,” she said of the GLAAD Awards.

We asked her about her entrance to the event, because a publicist took a while to find her name on the list.

“Oh, I didn’t notice!” She laughed. “I don’t expect people to know who I am, I’m not a celebrity. I’m just a journalist trying to tell my story.”

Popstar Ari Gold was in attendance as well, but only briefly, and we were temporarily blinded by a large purple diamond pendant in the couture section, so we missed him. Perhaps the hors d'oeuvres didn't sit quite right.

Zipper Cleavage

The Observer shuffled into Milk studios on Friday and eyeballed everything. We were particularly impressed by the far wall, which was effectively blotted out by a pile of photographers. Their enormous lens protruded out toward the runway, and they waited like a hulking army of cyborgs. The show began, and we watched the clothes: right angles, zippers, and a coat trimmed in cobalt blue fur. It was eight minutes long. We filed out with the crowd, feeling as though we had blinked and missed it.

We then got slightly lost and found ourselves in the basement of the building at the “True Religion VIP Room,” which looked like a red velvet and animal-print bachelor pad with designer jeans hanging on hooks from the ceiling. It was nearly deserted. The plus side of this was a strange but delicious complimentary steamed milk concoction from the bar. (The barista asked The Observer if we wanted whip cream on top, and when we replied in the affirmative, said, “Wow. That’s nice.”) We departed the basement.

Outside, kneeling photographers clicked at glamorous people that we felt like we should recognize but did not. They had such tiny pores.

Then, a familiar face! The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman was bending and snapping amongst the other photographers, and we decided to say hello. He told us that he has yet to be impressed by either the shows or the street fashion outside of them, but that the clothes themselves matter little as long as he takes photos have an interesting composition so that they look “like they would in a dream.”

This seemed sadly like his planned PR response, but all was well, because we got to watch as he discovered his next subjects: a couple leaning into each other and looking at an iPhone, their jackets complementary in grey and a muted paisley print. His stopped in mid-sentence when he saw them; his face lit up and he started clicking.

We made a note to ourselves to start dressing in a way that gets that kind of reaction of from a fashion blogger, and went on our way.

Our New Favorite Model

No agitated people stood outside a 26th Street gallery on Friday, just a smiling attendant who guided The Observer into a creaking freight elevator the size of a barn. Upstairs, we were met with pinot grigio and delicate music, all harps and violins.

The models stood in two rows, blinking. Clad in Correll Correll’s romantic knits, they all sported strange buns with a chunk of hair pulled out that flopped over their eyes. A brunette model in the front row seemed to have forgotten model protocol, if such a thing exists; she itched her elbow, shuffled her feet, and made eye contact with anyone who looked at her.

Then the floor shook, and everybody gasped. Publicists scurried over to help a woman who had fallen in front of the first row of models, and to scoop up the wine glass she had broken. The space left bare on the floor after they pulled her up was spattered with red dots. They shuffled the woman off into a side room. She clutched her bleeding hand and looked mildly amused about her predicament.

We noticed that the brunette model was stifling a giggle, and our head filled with visions of a bloodthirsty model-turned-sociopath murdering everybody in the room with a chunk of shattered wine glass. Publicists dove toward the stains on the floor with wet paper towels.

“Did you see her fall?” we overheard.

“Yea, that’s why you eat before you drink.”

“No, it wasn’t that. Her heel broke!”

After all the commotion had died down, we spoke with Daphne and Vera Correll, the absurdly beautiful German twins behind the collection. They had nothing but wonderful things to say: about the judges who gave them the Ecco Domani award, the “lovely stores” in New York that carry their line, and Fashion Week in general. Their pretty angular faces glowed with the unique high of designers at their first show.

We spotted the brunette model share a laugh with the now-bandaged woman who fell, and we decided that she probably wasn’t a sociopath. The woman’s studded heels were both intact.

The Observer intended to ask the Correll sisters a token snarky question, tonight’s being “What does Fashion Week smell like?” But looking into their wide-eyed joy, their emanating belief that Fashion Week was about beautiful clothes and nothing more, we didn’t have the heart.

British designer Jenny Packham dresses the Duchess of Cambridge on a regular basis, but perhaps she wants to start attracting an edgier clientele. The collection in her runway show this Fashion Week was inspired by the femmes fatales of film noir; gowns were red, black, and gunmetal, with body-hugging silhouettes with wide sharp shoulders. Burlesque performer and tightlacer Dita Von Teese may have been recruited as an attendee in honor of the theme; she sat in the front row in cat-eye sunglasses and her usual Old Hollywood curls. This year’s Oscars nominations include a powerful group of leading ladies. Which celebs should don these gowns for the occasion and channel their inner temptress?

Designers are constantly looking for innovative ways to present their collections. From flash mobs to incorporating animals, Fashion Week-pro, Moncler, has earned a fantastic reputation for flashy and mildly ridiculous presentations. This year, for Moncler Grenoble, Wollman Rink became the label's runway.

Expert ice skaters donned designer ski pants and parkas and flung themselves dazzlingly around the rink in a series of choreographed performances. Elizabeth Hurley and Margherita Maccapani Missoni were notably in attendance, braving the bitter cold in their most glamorous outerwear. For those still freezing, Moncler served rum-spiked hot chocolate, mulled wine and hard cider.

"Those look like testicles!" remarked one shivering show-goer, pointing to roasted chestnuts.

"I'll have a few of the ones in the middle," chirped socialite Liliana Cavendish, unperturbed.

The show was extraordinary: the lights, the production-- it all worked! But with synchronized pinwheels, camel spins, and double Salchows-- it was nearly impossible to see those fabulous Moncler outfits zipping by. But who thinks about clothes during Fashion Week?!

Here are some of our favorite skater poses from that three-ring circus of an ice rink.