Lena Dunham at the Purim Ball.

Turns out there are at least two people in New York who don’t know who Lena Dunham is.

“Who was that girl with the two house tattoos on her back?” a couple of security guards asked the Transom as we walked into the Jewish Museum’s Purim Ball at the Park Avenue Armory last week. “The one everyone was making a big deal over?”

That, we informed our basic-cable-watching friends, was Ms. Dunham, the evening’s official Purimspieler and something of a main attraction. “Who?” they said again.

But she wasn’t the only gal with ink in the house. As we meandered alongside another tatted-up Jewess during the evening’s cocktail hour—which, like most of the event, had a distinct bar mitzvah-party feel—we overheard an old bearded dude getting a little judge-y: “Since when do Jews have tattoos?” he said.

But really, weren’t we all here to get along? From men in floral-print suits to at least one middle-aged vixen in an approximated Miss America costume, it was all kosher. Others in attendance had glitter tattoos, but we suspected those weren’t permanent.

When cocktail hour finally gave way to a seated dinner, the Transom found ourselves at a table of artists, most of whom were pals of Claudia Gould, the Jewish Museum’s director, although only some of them understood the holiday properly. So we explained, as rabbis have done for generations: Purim is that time of year when Brooklyn assemblymen learn the true meaning of racism.

To our left, Martha Rosler was very much in the Purim spirit. “Look at me,” she said, shaking her shoulders in some sort of seated dance, outfitted in a black-and-gold paisley blazer and Mardi Gras beads. “I’m wearing ridiculous things.”

On to dinner, and Ms. Dunham, as the Girls star/creator took center stage in front of the nearly 1,000 attendees, welcoming everyone to her bat mitzvah (we told you-—such was the vibe). As official Purimspieler, Ms. Dunham regaled us with the tale of Queen Esther and the Persians, all the while maintaining the speech patterns of Eloise, that children’s lit protagonist who lives on the “tippy-top” of the Plaza Hotel. “He picked Esther,” Ms. Dunham spieled, referring to the Persian king. “She was an orphan, which is pretty much the coolest thing you can be, like Pippi Longstocking or Drew Barrymore.”

With the story thus told, schmoozing took hold, and conversations naturally turned to Ms. Dunham’s breakout HBO show. Filmmaker Joe Lovett informed us he had just seen the first episode and that it was “very well done,” while some bleached blonde in a black dress had a harder time forming her opinion.

“I saw the first season and it was, like, really quite funny,” she said, “but, like, the second season? Like, I don’t know. I saw it.”

She then either stopped talking or our head exploded. It was now mercifully time to hit the dance floor. And it was just like they say in that old hip-hop ditty, which goes a little something like this:

“After Purim is the after party. After the party is (two hours of awkward middle school-grade grinding and groping just a hundred feet or so from) the Park Avenue Armory lobby.”

We just hope that, by the end of the night, someone became a man.

Bike-lane opponents are now hoping that the Prospect Park West bike lane could be the place where ... the “unstoppable force” of Sadik-Khan meets an “immovable object.” The immovable object in this case is Iris Weinshall. The knock on the former transportation commissioner among cycling advocates was that her support for their cause always seemed halfhearted. Her backers would say she was just heeding the popular will. “Clearly, if the lawsuit was to succeed, [Weinshall] could say, ‘See, I was reasonable after all,’ ” says Andrew Vesselinovitch, who served as the New York City “bike czar” under Weinshall before leaving the DOT in protest in 2006. To Weinshall’s critics, she is waging a personal vendetta. “It’s not just a bike lane. It’s a repudiation of her tenure as DOT commissioner. And it’s in her face every day,” says [Aaron] Naparstek.

When I approached Weinshall at a ­community-board meeting in January, she said only that she thought the DOT had gone about the Prospect Park West lane the wrong way; later, I spoke with her at length over the phone, but she ultimately declined to go on record. Finally, I received a call from Dov Hikind, a New York State assemblyman who represents the 48th District, in Brooklyn, saying he was contacting me on Weinshall’s behalf. “I can get to God faster than I can get to her,” he said of Sadik-Khan. “Listen, the commissioner enjoys having the freedom she has. At night she dreams of these things, and the next day she does them,” Hikind said. He wanted me to know that he was particularly vexed about a set of pedestrian islands on Fort Hamilton Parkway, in Borough Park. He said he’s exploring a lawsuit against the DOT if the pedestrian islands are not removed.

"I think this is a unique situation," said Hikind, who introduced a similar bill in 2005 after the London subways were attacked and NYPD officers began randomly searching the bags of some passengers.

Hikind told me by phone that if there is a "compelling governmental interest" to consider race in college admissions, as the Supreme Court affirmed in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, the same is true in a climate of heightened security risk.

"If this isn't a compelling government interest to do this, the war on terror, then what is? Why is there a difference?" Hikind said. "No one is saying we shouldn't check Norwegians--blonde, blue-eyed people--but we're saying let's be realistic about it. Their profile happens to be young, Muslim men of Middle-eastern and South Asian background. Is that the only thing you look at? Of course not."

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to blow up the airliner on Christmas Day, would not have fit that profile, Hikind's critics note. (See the below video.)

Hikind told me his bill does not yet have a senate sponsor, and that he realizes it faces an uphill road to passage. It has not yet been introduced in the Assembly.

"You know what? The debate is healthy," he said.

Staffers with "protected titles" will not be replaced, according to this source.

The news was delivered to current staffers by Bill Thompson on Friday, according to this source. A spokesman for Thompson declined to comment.

During the campaign, Liu took delight in saying he thought Thompson had been a good comptroller, but that he would be an even better one. 

Already, Liu has set up a web site for people looking for jobs, and a spokesman for him had said earlier they were looking nationwide for top fiscal experts, but also looking to fill all sorts of positions in the office.

Thompson has generally gotten good marks as comptroller, but his office has been criticized for having lots of politically connected employees. One employee is the brother of Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who endorsed Thompson. And some are connected to the Brooklyn Democratic County Organization, through whose ranks Thompson (and to some degree his father) rose.

I'm waiting to hear back from a spokesman for Liu.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Liu, Sharon Lee, said they invited many of the current staffers "to reapply" for their positions. "This is something that happens with the change of any administration" and many in the office "serve at the pleasure of the comptroller-elect," she said.

"Nothing," he replied.

It's a classic hurry-up-and-wait situation here at the Capitol. The Assembly was scheduled to go into session at 3 p.m. I saw Abbate at 4:20. State Senators are sitting in a closed conference, with demonstrators in favor of same-sex marriage and stronger tenant protections lining the halls outside.

"Well we're printing bills--some agreed bills--and we continue and negotiate with members in relevant areas," Sheldon Silver told me walking toward his office, after waving for a photo.

Official staffs are trying to negotiate a deficit reduction package, the major sticking point being the State Senate's intransigence with $1.3 billion of cuts to health care and education proposed by David Paterson. There are also negotiations going on over a new pension tier, a spending cap and some kind of legislation to stiffen penalties for drunk drivers. But agreements are elusive.

"We are at a new plateau with the governor in conversation and negotiation," State Senator Kevin Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat, told me earlier.

"There's no problem," Silver said when asked what the problem was with the budget.

As the top officials--Silver, Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson and David Paterson--determine what to do, members wait in legislative purgatory. Many groused last week that this would happen if they were called back without any agreement on what to do. They were right.

"I'm going through constituent cases and reading lengthy things I don't normally have time to read," Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat, told me, saying he found "peace and quiet" in the chamber.

"We're waiting...for the Messiah," he said.

Their exchange was respectful, and at times funny. The first strong position was taken by Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick, a Long Island Republican, who opposed the bill because he said it would force organizations or public accommodations with a religious belief—say, a Knights of Columbus Hall—to accept same-sex couples. His exchange with O'Donnell grew heated.

"By conferring a marriage license, we are saying that marriage is equal for heterosexuals as well as homosexuals," Fitzpatrick said. "And the problem I have is that, while the law cannot force any religious organization to solemnize or legitimize homosexual marriage, it will force society to recognize the legitimacy of homosexual marriage."

He wondered if there could be a provision for "conscientious objection" by some institutions. O'Donnell said this amounted to discrimination.

"The laws of discrimination and the human rights are what they are," he replied.

"What you're attempting to do is to legislate discrimination," Fitzpatrick replied.

"This is not about anybody's religion," O'Donnell replied. "I am entitled to the same paper you have, Michael, whether you want me to or not."

Fitzpatrick continued, saying a catering hall, for example, "has a right, I think, to discriminate on those grounds, if it is a religious institution."

"You ought to go to law school and read the law," O'Donnell replied. "You want to change the human rights law or the discrimination law, you can put in a bill to do that."

"I disagree, Dan, because I think there is a coming collision between what you're attempting to do and every faith that does not agree with gay marriage. This will be tested in court," Fitzpatrick replied.

Next came a speech by Assemblyman Matt Titone—who like O'Donnell, is openly gay—that invoked his recently deceased mother Margaret. As she lay on her death bed, he said, he gathered around with his sister and his brother-in-law. His partner of 16 years, Josh, had trouble getting into the hospital room.

"He was excluded from seeing her, the woman he had loved for the last 16 years, because he could not give a legal definition of what his relationship was to the family other than to say he was with the family."

"Two years ago in this very chamber, gay people everywhere were put in the same basket as bestiality, incestuousness, pedophilia, and deviation," he said. "In a word, it's discrimination."

"One of you said it would take an act of God for you to vote for this legislation," Titone continued. "For the past two years, I have been thinking and rethinking what that meant, an act of God."

"There are millions upon millions of acts of God that walk every single country on this small planet," Titone said. "We are your sons, your daughters; we are your brothers, your sisters. We are your nieces, your nephews. When it comes to demanding an act of God, I say your cup doth runneth over. My cup, however, is about 1,300 rights shy of being full."

He turned toward Fitzpatrick, who sat less than a dozen feet from him and whose face had grown taught.

"Look, Mike, I'm not looking for the right to force the Pope to preside over my big fat gay wedding," Titone said. "What I'm looking for is the right to go to City Hall, and pay a fee, and get a marriage certificate, and then have the right to go to the hospital and visit my mother-in-law on her death bed. That's all."

A few moments later, Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat and Orthodox Jew, rose. It was he who had made the comment to which Titone referred.

"It is about God," he said, waving a leather-bound copy of the Book of Leviticus. "It is about what I believe God wants. And I don't separate, you know, being the political figure and being the individual. How do you do that?"

"God is not a politician, to the best of my knowledge God does not flip-flop on the issues, either," he continued, referencing a letter he and colleagues received today from Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. "Suddenly Gillibrand is telling me that I should support gay marriage. I would love to know how she came to that conclusion on her own. I'm sure politics played absolutely no role. I'm sure it was about principal, about morality, about being fair."

The debate carried on over three hours. It was at times funny. Assemblyman Joel Miller, one of four Republicans who voted for the measure in 2007, used different voices and compared same-sex marriage to marijuana; neither, he said, is the drug of the establishment.

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, a Democrat from Forest Hills, announced that he is expecting his first child soon.

"I find the laws of the State of New York an assault on my child and my child's rights," he said. "I don't know if my child is going to be a boy or girl, or gay or straight, and it's irrelevant to me." He just knows he's going to love his child until "it's time for him or her to take over this Assembly seat and suffer like the rest of us did."

Four members—Janet Duprey, Sandra Galef, Fred Thiele and Bob Reilly—explained why they were voting differently than in 2007. Assemblyman Frank Skartados, who defeated Assemblyman Tom Kirwan, vowed to vote yes.

Hikind made the announcement on his weekly radio show Saturday night. In a brief telephone interview this morning, Hikind elaborated. 

“I know he’s qualified based on his experience, going back to before he was an elected official,” Hikind said, referring to Weprin’s days working in the state's Banking Department under Mario Cuomo. “He and I go back over 20 years.”

Hikind said the “most important job for any comptroller is to protect” money in the pension system, and especially in light of the “sad spectacle of political influence” on the decisions made about pension investments under Alan Hevesi, the former comptroller.

Also running for comptroller are Councilwoman Melinda Katz and Councilman John Liu, both of Queens.

As for the public-advocate race, Hikind said he is supporting Bill de Blasio. “I helped him get elected to the City Council years ago,” Hikind said, adding that he considers de Blasio a “really good friend.”

Hikind said he has not made up his mind about who he will support for mayor.

According to Vos is Neias, Hikind said:

"It's about character, and Barack Obama can not look the American people in the eye and say that he did not know that his Reverend was an unrepentant racist – the man who consecrated his marriage, who baptized his children, who was his spiritual advisor and confidante. It's not plausible, it's disingenuous, and it disqualifies him from ably serving as the president of the United States."

“It’s long overdue,” he said in a brief telephone interview this morning. “My God, you need a prime minister who can function, who can lead, who can be strong, who can direct. I think everyone realizes that Ehud Olmert was facing so many different issues and was such a weak leader—he did the right thing.”

Hikind said that he follows the polls in Israel regularly, and that “George W. Bush is extremely popular in America compared to the poll figures of Ehud Olmert’s in Israel over the past year.”

Which, based on numbers here and here, and here, is credible.

Hikind, it should be said, is no fan of Olmert. He's a Netanyahu man.

At the event, activist held signs calling Golden a “bigot,” and accused him of “homophobia,” primarily for signing onto this lawsuit.

They also announced a plan to put pressure on six legislators from Brooklyn -- Dov Hikind, Nick Perry, Steve Cymbrowitz, William Colton, Peter Abbate, and Annette Robinson -- who voted against same-sex marriage last year. (Two legislators, Alec Brook-Kransy and Carim Camara, abstained.)

As the clip above seems to show, those six legislators won’t get hit with the kind of rhetoric that Golden got hit with (although activist Allen Roskoff tries.)