New Yorkers are used to colossal pricks becoming No. 1. As Frank Sinatra (Exhibit A) sings after every Yankees (Exhibit B) game: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." And so a former Los Angeles poster salesman parlayed connections to pop-art dealer Leo Castelli into a globe-girdling conglomerate that regularly tosses up museum-quality exhibitions at three spacious Gotham showplaces. Whether insightful surveys of the canon (Picasso, David Smith), a revelatory memorial exhibit of Steven Parrino's erotically mangled canvases, or casually brilliant shows by trendsetters as disparate as Takashi Murakami and Rudolf Stingel, Larry Gagosian—by all accounts, a sharp-elbowed mogul—brings the visual goods. (Before musical fame struck, Sonic Youth guitarist Kim Gordon was an employee, and she summed up "Go-Go" succinctly: "He was very mean.") Last year, when the art world was by turns appalled and atwitter over the appointment of downtown gallerist Jeffrey Deitch as director of L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art, Gagosian reportedly quipped that he was "holding out for the Louvre." Perhaps he'd settle for the Met. 980 Madison Avenue (10075), 212-744-2313; 555 West 24th Street (10011), 212-741-1111; 522 West 21st Street (10011), 212-741-1717; gagosian.com