Mr. Roshan's magazine was throwing a party intended to honor "the most exciting rogues, renegades, and rule-breakers of the year." Film-maker Craig Brewer, writer Shalom Auslander, and Squid and the Whale star Jesse Eisenberg, among other rogues, renegades, and rule-breakers, were in attendance.

As Mr. Roshan surveyed the room, he considered the best time of year to host a party. "Summer, I think."

Standing near him were some lithe youngsters who were eagerly trying to grab their last vodka-sodas before the open bar closed.

The crowd at this point was sparse and generally unrecognizable. When I told Mr. Roshan that someone at the party observed that "Everyone invited to this party looks like someone who knows someone who was invited," he quipped, "Isn't that every media party?

We discussed holiday parties. He said the top contender for the Radar party looked like his Union Square East apartment.

After a look around, and another trip to the bar, Mr. Roshan recommended the museum's seventh floor. Stepping out of the elevator, he warmly embraced the magazine's publisher, Anne Perton, who said, "Ed Koch, the former mayor, was here! I walked over to him and he said, 'I love Maer!'"

A few minutes later, on the other side of the room, Nick Denton was holding court near a window with a stunning view of the downtown skyline.

"It sucks that Choire is leaving," he said. Choire Sicha, one of three editors who recently quit Gawker, was sitting a few feet away. "We're going to take a beating over the next few weeks."

He explained that, by beating, he meant the critical reviews other web sites would cast on Gawker. Asked whether he pays attention to what everyone had to say, he said no. "But it's never fun to read that stuff."