The manic New York art world's version of a meditative Zen garden, the New York Earth Room is a mesmerizing piece of installation art, an enormous white loft space filled to a depth of 22 inches with rich, moist dark earth. The 1977 work of celebrated installation artist Walter De Maria, who had earlier produced similar works in Munich and Dammstadt, neither of which have survived, the Earth Room has been continuously on view since 1980 at the SoHo Dia art center, where, generally, a single attendant will buzz you in and leave you alone to marvel at the installation. Here, 250 cubic yards of dirt cover the loft's 3,600 square feet and weighs 280,000, but the most impressive aspect of the installation isn't a sense of its intimidating size but its tranquil intimacy, as meditative as a sacred space.