The elegant 7th floor roof garden at Rockefeller Plaza is usually off limits, but for the next two evenings the general public is invited up to sip cocktails while savoring the twilight view. The only catch is that you have to absorb a lot of information about Canada, because our northern neighbor's tourism board is the one footing the bill. But since their national sales pitch comes with free food, music, drinks and hand massages, who's complaining?

Last night the roof was crawling with gregarious Canadians facing the unenviable challenge of promoting tourism to their country while standing on one of the more appealing pieces of real estate in Manhattan. If they really wanted to lure us to Canada, shouldn't they have held this somewhere like Times Square's Arena? Anyway, we did learn a thing or two: Toronto, which is only about an hour away by plane, has a much bigger Chinatown than New York, and a lot less spitting. And they have cowboys out in the Canadian rockies; that's where Hollywood goes to shoot gay westerns like Brokeback Mountain.

Rockefeller Center's 620 Loft & Garden is open to the public tonight and Thursday night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. [620 Fifth Avenue, entrance on 50th Street.]

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