Open-air creative capital

Muralists and graffiti artists have long understood that there is public exhibition space out there for the seizing. So have landscape designers and gardeners. And yes, the folks who dress their houses and yards in holiday lights. (The Arts Council in Somerville, MA raises funds with a 45-minute trolley tour of the most elaborately and imaginatively lit -- including the home of a resident who uses discarded window shield wiper motors to create waving Santas, angels and wise folk.)

But there is an interesting new wrinkle in open-air creative capital -- the use of once free-market advertising spaces for displays that can delight and interest. See what's happening atop NYC taxis, for instance.

Dennie Wolf