Chelsea resident Katie Holmes.

If a typical break-up calls for vats of Ben & Jerry’s and repeated viewings of The Notebook, then we suppose a highly publicized divorce from a top Hollywood actor and devout Scientologist calls for a cross-country move and a gorgeous new apartment. That’s pretty much what Katie Holmes got last summer when she took up residence at the Chelsea Mercantile—the spectacular, star-infused, 21-story building at 252 Seventh Avenue. The actress reportedly signed the lease just a few days after announcing her split from husband Tom Cruise in June 2012.

As you might expect from Ms. Holmes, who has also transmitted her fashion sense to daughter Suri, these are some stylish digs. The actress has been settling into her New York lifestyle pretty well since then. Last winter, Ms. Holmes took the stage as Lorna in Theresa Rebeck’s Dead Accounts, which ran from late November to early January at the Music Box Theatre. Though the show received mixed reviews, Ms. Holmes’s performance stood out, at least to The New York Times. Ms. Holmes “appears much more at ease playing a worn-down country mouse to the hyped-up city mouse of [Norbert Leo Butz],” Ben Brantley wrote. “Ms. Holmes and Mr. Butz summon an appealingly natural family rapport … You may even forget that Ms. Holmes is Katie Holmes for a moment.”

It’s no problem that Dead Accounts closed earlier than expected—Ms. Holmes is already at work acting in another project, a Spike Lee production called Mania Days. In the film, which has been shooting in different locations around New York City, Ms. Holmes plays Carla, a manic-depressive poet who forms a romantic relationship (and later a pregnancy) with a manic-depressive rapper, played by Luke Kirby.

Katie and Suri strolling and riding.

If you’re looking to spot Ms. Holmes on the streets of New York City, it’s unlikely—the star leads a private life (or as private as possible when you are being stalked by paparazzi). The most reliable place to spot the celeb is the H. Stern store on Fifth Avenue, where larger-than-life, nearly nude billboards of the gorgeous Ms. Holmes grace the windows on either side of the doors. Since moving to New York, Ms. Holmes has also been made the face of Bobbi Brown; she’s the company’s first-ever celebrity spokesmodel.

When Ms. Holmes isn’t performing onstage or posing on-camera, she’s playing the role of mother to daughter Suri. Ms. Holmes reportedly enrolled the stylish seven-year-old in the prestigious Avenues school, located near their home in Chelsea.  The school is very new, and has an educational philosophy that might appeal to jetsetters able to pay its slightly higher-than-usual tuition costs.

“In addition to teaching traditional subjects,” Avenues CEO and co-founder Chris Whittle has said, “the school takes seriously its mission to prepare students for the world through intensive classes in Spanish or Mandarin and by providing them with a global view of geography, history, religion, demographics and economic development across many cultures and countries.”

We always knew that Suri could out-dress us any day, but from the looks of her new school, we’re pretty sure she’ll soon be able to outsmart us, too.

But Back to Those Digs

The Chelsea Mercantile was originally built as a fabric manufactory in 1908 (that’s exactly 90 years before the premiere of Dawson’s Creek, the show that marks Ms. Holmes’ debut, in case you slept through that pop culture moment). Nowadays—with the influx of trendy galleries, restaurants and shopping spots in the neighborhood—the historic textile building has been transformed into more than 350 luxury condos that house the likes of Marc Jacobs, Jane Fonda and Lance Bass, along with Katie and Suri. It boasts an interior garden, full gym, parking garage, and a 10,000-square-foot roof deck, and yet still retains charming elements of its turn-of-the-century origins.

“The Chelsea Mercantile is really cool,” says Corinne Pulitzer, executive vice president of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which has sold a number of units at the Chelsea Mercantile in recent years. “The building has the infrastructure of a factory building, with the very high nine-foot ceilings. Some of the apartments have exposed brick walls.”

Sensible Katie probably chose the apartment for the distinctly downtown flavor but slightly

Entrance to the Chelsea Mercantile, home of Holmes.

more convenient location. She’s not a kid anymore, after all. “The apartments have a loft feel, but you don’t have to go down to Soho or Tribeca, which I think is a big pull for people,” Ms. Pulitzer says. “It’s great to live down there, [but] it’s a hard lifestyle selection if someone’s in the theater, or [working] in midtown.”

The Chelsea Mercantile is also perfect for anyone with a seven-year-old daughter. “The building has a children’s playroom,” says Ms. Pulitzer. “I can see how [Ms. Holmes] came to choose it.”

The diversity of the Chelsea neighborhood may also be responsible for attracting celebrities like Ms. Holmes. From the threshold of the Chelsea Mercantile, residents can reach avant-garde art galleries, elite eateries and fine retail all on foot (or by chauffeur, of course). “The neighborhood has such diverse attractions that it gets a really good mix of different types of people who are seeking [something] cool and edgy,” Ms. Pulitzer says, “as opposed to the Upper East Side, which I wouldn’t call cool or edgy.”

The Star Grocery Shops, Too

On the ground floor of Ms. Holmes’s apartment building is a cozy Whole Foods Market, where the actress is known to regularly shop. The Daily News photographed her there last summer, trying on  cowboy hats with daughter Suri as the pair shopped for a Fourth of July meal.

Though she had been spotted inside the organic food mecca, reporters last summer—who crowded Ms. Holmes’s building shortly after she moved in—were wondering why they rarely spotted their target entering Whole Foods. Hillary Reinsberg, a staff member at BuzzFeed, explained the popular theory that gradually circulated among the crowd of Holmes seekers: “Nearly every lingering photographer seemed to have figured out that Holmes has a way of getting into the store from inside her swanky apartment building,” Ms. Reinsberg wrote in a July 2012 article.

We needed to know: Is it a secret revolving bookshelf, activated by touching a certain tome? Does she enter through a nondescript girls’ bathroom, á la Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Can Katie Holmes teleport?

We ask a Whole Foods employee if Ms. Holmes really has a private entrance to the grocery store. He laughs—he has heard the rumor before. But, he says, there’s definitely no secret entrance for the rich and famous. “There’s no Batcave in here, there’s only one door.” Like almost everyone else we spoke to for this story, except the vocal Ms. Pulitzer, the real estate agent, this employee declines to be named, citing company policy.

While Ms. Holmes shops at Whole Foods, her “team” reportedly favors the more casual deli across the street. According to Amen, who does give his first name, and works behind the counter at Chelsea Gourmet Deli, “She sends her bodyguard in every morning—it’s one major guy who comes in.” He notes that the bodyguard frequently buys sandwiches, drinks and snacks.

And when it comes to eating out, Ms. Holmes has no shortage of choices in Chelsea. “The restaurants—my God, you never have to cook!” Ms. Pulitzer gushes.

Back in Beverly Hills, Ms. Holmes was known to be a fan of Crumbs Bakery. Luckily for Ms. Holmes, she can feed her sweet tooth on the East Coast, too; there’s a Crumbs a block away from her Chelsea apartment.  And indeed she has visited the cupcake shop. “It wasn’t a big interaction, but she was very nice,” says the manager of Crumbs when asked about Ms. Holmes’s visit to the bakery. She admits feeling a little star-struck: “I pretended like it wasn’t Katie Holmes!”

Nearby is also the trendy Meatpacking District, whose cobblestone streets are clustered with the hottest bars and restaurants in the city. “I’m sure [Ms. Holmes] hangs out there a lot,” Ms. Pulitzer says. “You have the Ganesvoort, all of these fabulous hotels and clubs. The Standard is there too, and they have that beer garden in the summer. It’s a really high-energy neighborhood.”

Living the Active Life

Of course, for a celebrity with a physique like Ms. Holmes’ and modeling and film contracts, along with great cupcakes come great demands for cardio. Though Ms. Holmes ventures outside of Chelsea to attend spin classes at SoulCycle, the actress is also known to frequent the Chelsea Piers, an expansive, multi-purpose athletic complex along the Hudson River, just blocks from her apartment, although this might be more for Suri’s benefit than her mother’s. Last summer, photographers spotted Ms. Holmes taking Suri to a Chelsea Piers gymnastics class.

If Suri tires of gymnastics, there’s always ice skating to try (and adorable skating dresses to wear while doing it), golf, bowling, boating and facilities for just about any kind of kid party.

But there is at least one sport Ms. Holmes enjoys partaking of at Chelsea Piers. An employee at Chelsea Brewing Company—a microbrewery and restaurant that’s part of the Chelsea Piers—says that Ms. Holmes is reportedly quite the alley cat.

“She goes bowling,” the employee says. “What’s interesting is they offer the private room—they have a private room with eight lanes—but they don’t want it. They want to be in

Crumbs, a favorite of Katie's and Suri's.

public.” Bowling in plain sight. Pretty brave.

Shopping Around

Ms. Holmes is known to be a long-time fan of Anthropologie; lucky for her, the store has a retail space in Chelsea Market, an easy walk from Ms. Holmes’s apartment.

We swing by Anthropologie’s Chelsea location in the hopes of spotting the actress—or at least finding out if she’s a frequent visitor. A friendly employee confirms our suspicions, noting that Ms. Holmes often comes into the store to grab a few things. “She’s a loyal customer,” the sales representative says. “She’s an Anthro girl!”

One Columbia grad student and frequent Anthropologie shopper describes the time she and her roommate spotted Ms. Holmes at the Chelsea Market store: “I was admiring bowls and glasses and first saw her from the periphery,” the source says. “I walked over to my roommate and asked her to look for me again to confirm. Katie Holmes said, ‘Let’s go, sweetie’—she was with Suri, and they were looking at plates. I also checked out next to them and she asked about different colors for table settings.”

The student also reports that on that day in November, Ms. Holmes’s overall style was pretty casual. “From what I remember, [she wore] a long gray cardigan, jeans and short boots,” she says.

Ms. Holmes has also been seen checking out other spots in the famed indoor market, which houses popular joints like Morimoto, Friedman’s Lunch and Sarabeth’s Kitchen.

Walk a little farther south to the Meatpacking District and you’ll hit even more high-end clothing shopping destinations: Diane von Furstenberg, Tory Burch, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney all have shops there. And the shopping options are only continuing to grow: “On the corner of 14th Street toward the West Side Highway, one of my favorite gas stations is now going to be 20,000 square feet of retail right by the Highline,” Ms. Pulitzer says. It’s a market that’s certainly perfect for a fashionista like Ms. Holmes—or even a budding fashionista or a budding one.

jtaylor@observer.com

Tom Cruise (Getty Images)

Tom Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields has issued a press release announcing the star's lawsuit against Life & Style magazine's publisher for claiming that the star "abandoned" daughter Suri. Wrote Mr. Fields: "Tom is a caring father who dearly loves Suri... Tom doesn't go around suing people. He's not a litigious guy."

Mr. Cruise has previously sued a gay porn actor for claiming that the pair had had an affair in 2001, and earlier this year threatened to sue The National Enquirer for calling him a "monster" and describing his home in derisive terms.

Stephen Colbert hangs with New York Cardinal Timothy Nolan (PatrickMcMullan)

- The Amazing Spider-Man's Andrew Garfield and girlfriend Emma Stone managed to turn an invasion on their privacy into a mitzvah when they used a weekend paparazzo swarm to show off handmade cardboard signs for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation and Gilda’s Club of New York City. Hopefully they weren't arrested as OWS protestors.

- Suri Cruise finished her very first week at Avenues, the new private school in NYC. Though "private" is a relative term when there are people waiting in the bushes to take photos of you during snack time.

- Nicki Minaj joined Keith Urban as an American Idol judge, spending her first days on the job fighting with Mariah Carey and beginning New York auditions. That's got to be worth $12 million, right?

- Stephen Colbert joined New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan onstage at Fordham University on Friday, telling the Jesuit school students that despite the flaws in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he loved his Church, "warts and all." No, he wasn't in character. Stop being so cynical.

- Seth MacFarlane kicked off a "meh" premiere of Saturday Night Live, but maybe that's because his face just looks so damn punchable. The night's best sketch didn't involve the guest star at all, with an Obama-sponsored political ad.

Given that we can't watch the trial, we guess we're excited about Katie's next chapter too--her Oscar speech in 2014 will be terrific!

“Suri would always be in the trailer with me, trying to pull it off,” Tom Cruise said excitedly at the New York premiere of the film at Time Warner Center on Dec. 15, where he arrived without wife, Katie Holmes, on his arm. (It was rumored that the red carpet was held indoors in order to avoid Scientology protesters.)  “So the girls in the make-up trailer got this little teddy bear with an eye-patch so that she would play with it and get used to the patch on the bear and on me.”

In the film, Mr. Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer who led the failed July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. But rumors about the film’s delayed release (it was originally scheduled for June 27, 2008) have referenced everything from German officials protesting the making of the film and problems with the budget to fatal injuries experienced on set.

“The only time I had a sense of all that stuff is when I’d go home to London and people would say, ‘What have you been up to?’ and I’d say ‘I’ve been in Berlin on set with Tom Cruise,’” said British actor Bill Nighy, who plays General Friedrich Olbricht. From there on the conversation would go something like this, according to Mr. Nighy:

“Oh my God, are you okay?”
“Well, yes. I’m fine,” Mr. Nye would reply.
“What about all that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“What about the guy who died?
“What guy?”
“There was a guy, a guy who died!”
“No guy died. I assure you, no guy died.”
“And didn’t the government try to close it down?
“No, no. The government did not try to shut anything down.”

“The Germans were actually very supportive once they understood that that we weren’t trying to belittle this story into some Top Gun kind of movie,” clarified John Ottman, the editor, composer, and co-producer of the film.  

“It was just a complicated film to put together and 98 percent of stuff you read on the internet is not true,” he continued. “It was a film that got bigger from the original concept. A lot of the scenes that we originally wanted to shoot, we decided not to shoot at some point to save some money, but then we ultimately decided to shoot them. Everyone said, ‘Oh, they’re re-shooting all these scenes.’ But that was just not true.”

As for any injuries sustained during filming, there was one person—of the 11 injured—who required hospitalization after a side panel of a truck they were riding in broke. But there was plenty of room for other scares given Mr. Cruise’s typical on-set antics.

“After we were done shooting inside of an airplane, an old 70-year-old German junker--a sort of flying school bus--Tom took control of the plane and took it into a full wingover about 200 feet over the trees,” recalled director Bryan Singer (Superman films, The Usual Suspects). “It was wild. It was also our young actor Jamie Parker’s first day. I think he was shocked.”

Dutch actress Carice van Houten, who plays Mr. Cruise’s wife in the film, had only kind words to say about her co-star. “He’s a dream colleague,” she told Daily Transom. “He was very nice to me, very supportive, and very sweet. He spoiled me and made me feel wanted and safe, which is good for an actor I think.”

And despite German politicians’ initial hesitation about allowing the film to be made--due to Mr. Cruise’s involvement with Scientology and how their country’s history would be portrayed--things seemed to eventually work out.

“This is a special part of Germany’s history and it’s not a very glorious part,” said Thomas Kretschmann, one of the German actors in the film. “It was very good to see that Hollywood came along and wanted to do a film to show that not all Germans were the same and that there are in fact people who stood up and fought for their beliefs.”

During filming, which took place over the course of about six months, a few of the British and American actors even learned some German.

“I learned one word!” Mr. Ottman said. “It’s so terrible and American of me, but I learned ‘Tschuss,’ which means, like, bye or see you later.”

Mr. Nighy picked up the sort of German that could be more useful. “I can probably order an omelet,” he said. “That’s all I really need.”  

Citing the meeting, along with a planned appearance on Ugly Betty and a potential audition for the Sex and the City movie sequel as evidence, a source told the Daily Star: “It’s very early days but it shows [Ms. Geldof] is being taken seriously in New York, something she didn’t feel she was in London.”

We're not sure how Brits define "seriously," but if the decidedly mixed reaction to her debut column in Nylon was any indication, the approval Ms. Geldof seeks might be a slow time coming. Of course, the public rarely has anything nice to say about socialite-penned columns commissioned by fluffy magazines, but Ms. Geldof didn't do herself any favors with gems like "America is a strange place, a place of contradictions, but a place that never fails to change one’s world view."

We wondered, then, how bad exactly is her image across the pond?

We dug up a similar piece by Ms. Geldof, a March '07 contribution to The Guardian. In the column, she discusses her decision to purchase a tiny dog on her 18th birthday ("Truth be told, Snowy has brought out a maternal instinct in me I never thought I had. Maybe I'm more ready for this elusive adulthood than I thought. And it's always funny taking her to Subway and watching the stunned customers stare as I casually place her next to a same-size sandwich") and her discovery of and subsequent addiction to MySpace ("I vowed to take time off from my rapidly growing addiction, but, like a smoker who studiously applies patches to herself, the pull of the metaphorical MySpace cigarette was too strong").

Also in the MySpace bit: "At my boyfriend's he would beg me to watch Neighbours with him (our old favourite pastime) but I would dismiss him with a wave of the hand, browsing American housewives' profiles on his laptop until I fell asleep."

Does Tom Cruise know about his wife's socializing habits?

Guardian commenters were equal parts disgusted ("Surely the Guardian had something better on it's mind when it started than to play host to adolescent drivel. Someone please take responsibility for allowing this utter twaddle to reach the street") and receptive ("It's funny seeing all the stuffy wannabe-intellectuals "offended" by reading an article written by an intelligent young woman"). Maybe it's just British manners, but that reception looks downright friendly compared to the blog-thrashing she got over here.

"And it's like any other play date," said Ms. Taylor, who was wearing a long black Carolina Herrera dress. "I mean [Suri's] amazing and [Tom and Katie] are terrific. And when little kids get together you just let them do their thing, there's no outside elements. Ella likes being the older sister—and we haven't had many [play-dates] but whoever's children that they're playing with, it's always a great thing to see your kids connecting."

Inside, Mr. Stiller's first congratulations actually came via video from Mr. Cruise, who appeared in Mr. Stiller's Tropic of Thunder wearing a fat suit. Mr. Cruise said he found working with Mr. Stiller to have been "both an inspiration and enlightening." He also "wanted to tell the room that I am one of, if not your biggest, fans."

Other presenters besides Mr. Cruise included recent co-stars Jack Black, from Tropic of Thunder; Bill Hader and Amy Adams, from Night at the Museum 2; and Robert De Niro from Meet the Fockers. Then: Sean Combs, Will Arnett, Mike Myers, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

The presenters soon began roasting Mr. Stiller. Mr. De Niro threw a jab about the volleyball scene from Meet The Parents: "So, Ben comes out and you expect to see a shlubby body and instead he comes out and is totally buff. Ben, being the terrific actor that he is, overcomes this contradiction by having a really tiny dick. And thanks to the tiny bathing suit, it's apparent to everyone!"

Mr. Black spoke about his "laser vision," and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog brought the Cruise theme back, unearthing a clip from The Ben Stiller Show of Mr. Stiller doing an impression of what Tom Cruise would look like "on Broadway."

"He is so successful," Triumph said, ruminating on the event's expenses in relationship to the economy. "One little baby fart of your Madagascar money and we could all be home watching Top Chef."

Mr. Stiller shot back at Triumph during his speech: "I also want to thank whoever got Triumph the Insult Comic Dog—best kind of comedian, the kind that hides behind a podium."

When they walked in, they spotted a little girl by the front sandwich display with a neat head of dark brown hair trimmed into a bob, dressed in an "adorable" red tunic and spandexy black pants, and clutching some sort of toy. 

"Oh my God, that's Suri Cruise!" whispered one Observer staffer. Indeed it was the two-and-a-half-year-old Ms. Cruise, accompanied by her 29-year-old mother Katie Holmes and several bodyguards.

Ms. Holmes is residing in downtown New York these days while acting in Arthur Miller's All My Sons. The actress seems to have settled into her temporary life in New York nicely, not shying away from being seen out and about the city. She takes Suri to the park and goes shopping. And, yes, even picks up lunch from the ubiquitous Zaro's, which to us means she has fully assimilated. 

"Hey, if Zaro's is good enough for Katie and Suri, it's good enough for me!" our colleague told us.

In more fun news, Ms. Ronson's girlfriend, Lindsay Lohan, will dress as Sarah Palin for Halloween! [Full Disclosure]

Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen assured worried reporters that she is "naturally thin." [US Weekly]

Suri Cruise reportedly gets abnormally excited when she sees kids her own age because she's had "not a lot of socialization." [P6]

Family drama: Photographer Bruce Weber is suing his girlfriend's cousin, the actress Anna Thomson, over money he provided for the care of Thomson's dying mother, shoe designer Beth Levine. [P6]

A drag queen threw a condom filled with "a questionable liquid" at Leonardo DiCaprio at the Box, where he always seems to be. [R&M]

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anothy renewed their vows alongside Mets outfielder Carlos Beltran and his wife, Jessica. [People]

We can’t pretend to know what’s going through Ms. Holmes’s mind (can anyone really these days?), but according to US Weekly, this tired old pair of jeans belongs to her husband, Tom Cruise. A rep for Prps, the brand that manufactured the jean, told the magazine that they’ve even adopted the men’s style for women for their fall collection.

Ms. Holmes’ borrowed pair of slouchy pants—a look more appropriate for a fishing trip than the streets of Lower Manhattan—have appeared in a variety of poses. There they are with a silk scarf and neat little cardigan; with ruby red three-inch heels and a hot pink sweater; with black, red, silver and copper flats; paired with loose-fitting cardigans and t-shirts as she takes daughter, Suri, to the park, and hops in and out of her chauffeured SUV between rehearsals. With each passing day they appear more and more faded. Perhaps a visit to the dry cleaners is in order.

Click the icon at the above right for a series of Ms. Holmes’s pegged denim looks.