Joshua Sanchez

Entering Liz Rosenburg’s sprawling apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is like happening upon a meticulously curated and almost entirely nonsensical mini-museum — a beautifully appointed gallery in which collections of antique head-shaped vases share space with a miscellany of organized dolls, and where shelves of ceramic 1950s spaghetti poodles square off against a wall of sparkly red lips in every variety, size, shape, and shade of red. It’s a space in which carefully presented food is front and center, arrayed in every possible configuration and accommodating every potential craving. And yet none of it is actually edible. The curiosities housed here reflect a very particular sensibility and sense of humor that is as warm, funny, and unpredictable as Rosenberg herself, who has spent the better part of the past five decades amassing and quietly perfecting her collection. “I absolutely get tremendous joy coming back into my house and seeing all these things on my walls,” says Rosenberg, gesturing around the apartment. “I’m also very sentimental, and so many of these pieces have a story attached to them. I think of my things as sort of toys for grown-ups. Some people get fancy cars, I get fake food.”