"It's a kind of bolero jacket with beads all over it,"  Ms. McCord told the Daily Transom about the jacket that she bought at an estate sale about a decade ago. "It's a very old piece that has been cared for over the years and I think I've actually only worn it only once. It was to a benefit and maybe just one other time to dinner. It's a really unique piece.  I remember when I got it it thinking that it was just so unique because that's what I look for when I go out. Who wants to buy a turtleneck?"

Ms. McCord's jacket is just one of the many celebrity-donated items to be auctioned off as part of a silent auction to raise money for the organization. Among the other discarded loot is a MaxMara silk dress from Susan Sarandon; a Furla handbag from Real Housewife LuAnn de Lesseps; a Christian Dior hand bag from Real Housewife Ramona Singer; a tie (of unspecified brand) from Senator Chuck Schumer; and a Dolce & Gabbana corset from Chloe Sevigny, who will will also be donating a retro silver refrigerator. (Housing Works has set up a Flickr photo album with photos of all the items for sale.)

Real Housewife Kelly Killoren Bensimon has joined her co-stars and donated a cotton gray IISLI dress and Varvatos Converse sneakers. But she has never worn either of these items—doing so, she thinks, is a little insulting.

"The sneakers are brand-new, as is the dress. I would never, I mean I would never donate something to charity that I had already worn. Never. Ever. Never," she told the Daily Transom. "It's like a slap in the face! Oh, here's something old? No. No way. Never. Even when I gave scarves and gloves to Hale House, I went to Old Navy and bought brand-new scarves and gloves. I'm not going give them old stuff. I ... I don't really like that. But that's me."

To bid on these celebrity-owned items—and Ms. Bensimon's never-worn dress and sneakers—visit the silent auction on Saturday at 72 Warren Street, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (Starting bids have not yet been established.)

“What’s great about Housing Works’ philanthropy is that they have this sort of entrepreneurial spirit to everything so that they’re able to do things like a catering service or this event, that’s for profit,” said Ms. Rowley. “It’s a way you can give people something they might actually need rather than rely on donations like other charities.”  

When she came downstairs, Ms. Rowley, wearing a floral patterned dress and over-the-knee brown boots, helped "style" guests as they tried on items at a charity-friendly discount. (Ten percent of the evening’s receipts were donated to Housing Works.)

“Up until just about a minute ago, I was pulling my hair out in the design studio,” said Ms. Rowley. “Normally when we have an event like this I would be here the entire time, but it’s only a week and a half until show week!”

On Sunday night, Ms. Rowley’s husband, writer and gallerist Bill Powers, called her at work and suggested she finally part with her studio to come home and watch the Super Bowl. (The couple resides just around the corner from Ms. Rowley's Bleecker Street boutique.)

“I was like, wait a second--fashion or football?” Ms. Rowley said, holding up both palms as if to weigh the options. “Now, why would I have to leave for that?”

Over by the dressing rooms, a bright-faced Andrew Greene, a Housing Works staffer, was trying on a seersucker blazer and caught Ms. Rowley’s attention.

“Nice! Though my eyes are going, like, ‘prrrrrr!” said Ms. Rowley, blocking her eyes from the dizzying effect of light blue pin stripes over Mr. Greene’s light blue checkered shirt. “But that jacket looks so great on you.”

“I don’t know, I may need another Prosecco to buy this,” replied Mr. Green, hungrily tugging on the lapels.

“You know, if you wash it, it gets kind of crumpled up and looks very thrift store-y,” Ms. Rowley informed him.

“No, no,” he replied. “I’d want to keep it pristine. Just like this.”

Speaking of thrift stores, the Daily Transom wondered if, as a designer, Ms. Rowley was ever saddened to find items from her recent collections dispatched to racks of Housing Works' many thrift shops.

“You know, a couple of people here tonight, were like, ‘I have lots of your stuff that I’ve gotten at Housing Works!’ And I was like, ‘Thanks, that’s pretty cool.' And then I thought, ‘Or is that cool?’” said Ms. Rowley. “But ultimately, I think it is because to them, it’s a total score. And the thing she was talking about happens to be one of my favorites and she had three of them! I myself only have one.”

Monday night, mere hours after Ms. Crosley sent that email, something like three things started happening practically simultaneously: at the National Arts Club, a cocktail hour for Lapham's Quarterly; elsewhere, a party for 35 year olds at Tribeca Cinemas and also one honoring book clubs (?) at Pierre. Then last night it was a Moth benefit competing with the Housing Works Gin Mingle competing with tamizdat editor Keith Gessen and Mark "I'm a Reasonable Man Get Off My Case" Greif interviewing Dissent's Michael Walzer at the New School competing with former Hyperion editor Will Schwalbe's Cookstr.com launch at Pasanella & Son. Tonight it's the National Book Awards at Cipriani's and the Weinstein/Grove "drinking and dancing" after-party at Socialista. Thursday there's The Nation's Fall Books party and Friday, n+1 celebrates the release of its seventh issue.

All of which is just great, except hey, intelligentsia, how about slowing down a little! What happened to going home after work and watching Netflix on the couch?

Forget about it. Housing Works was packed last night. Josh Ferris gave a speech about his dad, and privately wondered why he wasn't nominated for the National Book Award again this year considering he didn't even win last year. Ms. Crosley was there too, just as she was last year, and was seen at one point bidding Moby goodbye. Elyse Cheney, the literary agent, thought the music was way too loud and begged whoever would listen/could hear to please find the manager of the store and ask him to turn it down. "Who's the guy who's running this party? she said. "Someone has to tell him to turn the music down." "The DJ is right over there -- why not just ask the DJ?" someone said. Ms. Cheney replied, with authority: "You can't just ask the DJ."

Later, when the message reached him, the store manager didn't seem to know whether to take Ms. Cheney's request seriously. He said he was pleased with the Mingle, but in a technical way that he didn't think any of the guests could really appreciate because they didn't have to decide, for example, where to put the open bar so that there wouldn't be a bottleneck by the coat racks.

Dale Peck made a remark about feeling old because his former students were now coming to the Gin Mingle in a professional capacity rather than as children. Zoe, the red-haired girl with glasses who works at Housing Works and is always riding her bike around Fort Greene, announced happily that she and her boyfriend Matt were going to get married. "It was mutual," she said, which means simultaneous proposals maybe?

A few blocks away, the Farrar, Straus & Giroux editor Lorin Stein was looking at some art in a gallery when some friends spotted him, and it was revealed, to everybody's amusement, that he did not even know what the Gin Mingle was.

A tall guy named Matt Stevens, who works as a personal assistant to a business woman and is in his late 20s, wore a Nader '08 shirt. So far, the response was negative.

"I wanted to stir the pot," he said.

Galleycat's Ron Hogan, sitting with a friend named Gretel, was killing some time before heading to the Huffington Post party."I'm waiting til the crowd thins out at 23/6," he said. "I figured it would be packed this early, so...If it's still packed when I get there ,I'll just go home. I heard they're going to be playing every network. I'm looking forward to seeing the Fox anchors squirm at the end. "

There was lots of cheering when MSNBC called Pennsylvania and New Jersey for Obama. McCain got booed for his wins.

Eva Pfaff, who works in the New York Magazine business department and lives on the Upper West Side, said "It feels like New Year's Eve I'm prone to wanting to see what's happening at Times Square and Rockefeller  Center... butI wanted to get the jist of it first. One red state turns blue and I feel like it's ready to go."

Her friend Kim Willis, who runs thefrisky.com, said the whole night is reminding her of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

"You don't want to be alone when it happens, you want to be with people, you feel like the world is about to change before your eyes," she said.

Later, they're going to hit up some blue (read, Obama-supporting) bars.

It was a very intellectual crowd, a lot of writers, noted Ms. Willis. But no one the Observer recognized.        

Word of this incident rang out immediately, and a solemn statement laying out the facts of the deportation was issued by his literary agency in England. “The flamboyant Horsley,” the press release said, “dressed in his trademark style, complete with top hat, three-piece suit and finger nail-polish, was immediately pulled aside for questioning…. It is believed the book’s content is what caused the writer’s return to the UK because of its candid and controversial account of Horsley’s extreme drug abuse, the author’s pro-prostitution views, and the author’s own self crucifixion in the Philippines in 2000.”

A paragraph down, a promise was made that the book party at Housing Works would go on as planned. This party would be a rally now. Members of the media, literary and publishing communities were expected to attend. The press release was forwarded widely, and by the following morning, Mr. Horsley was a veritable cause célèbre.

At the party, guests talked excitedly about what had happened, eating celery and drinking absinthe that was being prepared in the back of the room by a boyish assistant from HarperCollins. Francine Prose was said to be in attendance, and around 7:30, a rumor went around that Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta was thinking about coming by.

Mr. Horsley’s publisher, Carrie Kania of Harper Perennial, wore pearls.

“[Sebastian’s girlfriend] Rachel had her cell phone and called me, and just told me what was going on,” Ms. Kania said, explaining the circumstances under which she heard about Mr. Horsley’s detainment and how she tried to resolve the crisis. “I was on the phone with my lawyers just to try to figure out if there was anything I could do at this point. Is there anything—you know, what can I do? I just kind of sat there all day watching the phone ring hoping that it was Sebastian or Rachel just to give me an update. It was a pins and needles sort of situation.”

She went on: “I only got two hours of sleep last night. I couldn’t sleep, and I wrote a speech that I’m going to read tonight. I just—I don’t want to say I freaked out about it, I was just very ... upset about it. I was very upset about it.”

Of course, the silver lining of the incident did not escape Ms. Kania. A big piece in The New York Times, the kind of Internet buzz money can’t buy … plus the party was going incredibly well.

“Without the author here, this is a pretty packed party for 45 minutes in!” Ms. Kania said.

It was true: The energy in the room was undeniable. And of course it was! History, after all, was happening. A thing had taken place, and it reminded people of other things, from the past, that they knew had been important. A young editor from Free Press came dressed in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a red, white, and blue dress. “I wanted to make a statement,” she said.

The young assistant from HarperCollins, the one tending bar in the back, said the absinthe he was serving was contributing to the atmosphere of the party.

“It’s just that it’s a forbidden drink, and it’s so appropriate for the author,” he said. “And now it’s even more appropriate!”

A publicist from Harper Perennial was working the floor and giving out press kits for Mr. Horsley’s book. She was asked whether the deportation—which had effectively wiped out Mr. Horsley’s entire promotional tour of the States—had been a nightmare or a gold mine.

“It’s been a bit of both,” she said. “You know, we love Sebastian. Do I want him here? Totally. But are we gonna make a lot of noise about what happened? Definitely, you know? So in some ways it’s great to get this press, but I would love for him to see this and see the reception he’s getting.”

She would not discuss if and how the Harper Perennial publicity team might seize on the opportunity. “I think we’re going to regroup after tonight,” she said. “And see, you know, what the reaction is, and what Sebastian wants, and who’s interested, and go from there.”

Around 8 p.m., Ms. Kania took the microphone and gave her speech. “This is not what I thought I was going to be saying,” she said, before launching into the story of what had taken place at Newark the day before. Her tone fluctuated as she spoke, as though she could not decide whether she was reciting a fairy tale or delivering a battle cry.

She closed by declaring that Mr. Horsley’s book was in good company. “Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, American Psycho: all of these books have been deemed dangerous by the authorities and unfit for the general public to read. The Sex Pistols, banned in 1978. Sebastian banned, 30 years later.”

After Ms. Kania’s speech, a friend of Mr. Horsley’s, the British actor Robert Pereno, took the stage. “Could everybody wave to Sebastian?” Mr. Pereno said, pointing to a camera that was mounted on the second floor of the store. “He’s watching!”

Everybody waved cheerfully and shouted hello. Mr. Pereno recited a letter that Mr. Horsley had asked him to read to the partygoers. For the next 10 minutes or so, the crowd was treated to yet another version of the now legendary tale, this time sprinkled with some choice one-liners from Mr. Horsley’s repertoire and accompanied by a guy with a long beard who sat behind Mr. Pereno and played some sort of homemade guitar.

Afterward, a young woman named Carla was talking about how sad it was that Mr. Horsley could not come to the party. She was a friend of his from London, she said, and she’d come to New York specifically for him.

“We’ve been looking forward to it for months,” she said. “Sebastian is beside himself with disappointment. We’re all here and he isn’t. He’s terribly upset.”

Really though: none of the big publishing execs were there and neither was Jonathan Safran Foer, and that meant all the nice editors who came—silvery haired ones like Paul Slovak from Viking as well as young ones like Matthew Weiland from the Paris Review and Jamison Stoltz from Grove/Atlantic—could just talk about the books they liked, and it was okay.

Some of these people brought books with them, even, and donated them to the store. Dwight Garner, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, said he brought a copy of Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, "a party trick," he said in an e-mail this morning, that "most people in literary Manhattan seem to have mastered."

"The Housing Works party is always one of the year's great ones because Bayard's advice isn't required," Mr. Garner said. "Everyone there seems to have read everything."

National Book Critics Circle president John Freeman said that Housingworks is one of the few places in town where such a crowd can still gather. At first he mentioned something about the "downtown literary scene," but after looking around he conceded that almost everyone he saw lived in Brooklyn.

A young writer named Julian Tepper talked about a book he'd just finished writing, about a man who finds eight unpublished Chekhov stories in Central Park and publishes them under his own name. Taking the old and making it new: In this way, Mr. Tepper was a metaphor.

The humorist John Hodgman, meanwhile, who hosted the evening alongside Eat Pray Love lady Elizabeth Gilbert, said something during his speech about how Housingworks was like a chapel for books. He said he wanted to stay there forever and set up a little home for himself on the second floor. In this way, he also was a metaphor.

Neoclassicism, not nostalgia, was the point. Why? Because for all the tall tales, working in the publishing business was probably never much better than it is right now, and parties can still be pretty good, even though things fall apart.

And some of the biggest prizes for these lawyers are yet to come. City Hall may well have to fork over millions more to this small band of free speech defenders.

Make no mistake about it, the Mayor is not a big fan of these lawyers. It's not like he's tossing them lucrative city contracts. The Mayor is making his enemies rich because the city must pay the legal fees of groups that have successfully sued City Hall for violating their First Amendment rights. A federal judge recently took note of "a relentless onslaught" of First Amendment litigation brought on by City Hall's attempts to limit speech and expression. The judge's remarks were prompted by the city's decision to deny photographer Spencer Tunick a permit to shoot nude models on a residential city street at 5:30 a.m. The photographer hired Mr. Kuby and won his case.

Ironically enough, Mr. Kuby and his fellow First Amendment watchdogs are going to miss Mr. Giuliani when he eventually vacates Gracie Mansion.

"We talk in wistful terms about what it's going to be like when Rudy Giuliani is gone," Mr. Kuby said. "Rudy Giuliani is in large part responsible for maintaining my law practice."

In the Tunick decision, Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi said, "We would be ostriches if we failed to take note of the heavy stream of First Amendment litigation generated by New York City in recent years."

Included in that stream was the case of Housing Works Inc. v. The City of New York. That's the case in which Housing Works, the confrontational organization that provides housing for people with AIDS, sued the city for, in effect, taking away its federal funding because the group criticized the Mayor. In the lawsuit that followed City Hall's actions, Judge Calabresi found "a clear and substantial likelihood" that the city had withdrawn Housing Works funds "in retaliation [for] criticism of the Mayor's administration."

As a result of that legal victory, Housing Works got its federal funding restored, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary Andrew Cuomo took away the city's power to decide which groups would get federal dollars to house the homeless. And Mr. Emery's law firm, which defended Housing Works, got $190,000.

"Mayor Giuliani is a lawyer," Mr. Emery said. "He perfectly well understands constitutional balance and yet he tramples it regularly with the fervor of Savanorola. In the process, he's established case law and publicized very important precedents for First Amendment rights. One could look at him oddly and ironically as a First Amendment hero."

Daniel Connolly, special counsel at the New York City Law Department, maintains the Housing Works case was wrongly decided. He says Housing Works mismanaged its funds and deserved to be downgraded. "We don't like writing big checks to anyone, but it is an assessment that we make in every case that we handle. There are fights we would like to take on that we can't, in the risk of putting a case before a jury."

Mr. Connolly said much of this litigation was filed under civil rights statutes designed to give impoverished plaintiffs access to the court system by ensuring that lawyers who took on these kinds of cases-and won them-would be paid the market rate.

"It was right-minded legislation, but it gives enormous advantage to the plaintiffs and enormous disadvantage to the defendants," Mr. Connolly said.

Mr. Emery's law firm, Emery, Cuti, Brinckerhoff & Abady, has collected another $32,000 for representing East Timor Action Network in a case in which the group was denied a permit to erect temporary street signs. (Mr. Emery's co-counsel in that case, the Center for Constitutional Rights, got $56,000.) Mr. Emery was written a $65,000 check for representing news vendors upon whom the city wanted to impose hefty licensing fees.

Big Prizes in Future?

But his law firm's biggest prize may yet be on its way. In another Housing Works case, a more general case charging that the city tried to put the group out of business, the law firm has already clocked about 2,000 hours. The case is slated for trial, perhaps as early as this fall.

In fact, Housing Works may prove to be the costliest of all the First Amendment plaintiffs. At the end of April, the Mayor reluctantly opened City Hall Plaza-but only by way of metal detectors-after Housing Works won a case saying the Mayor's policy of limiting press conferences, rallies and demonstrations on or near the City Hall steps violated the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer ruled that the city's rules were unconstitutional.

The case has gone on for nearly two years. The city has promulgated seven sets of rules. Each time the rules got to his desk, Judge Baer ruled against the city. (In some cases the city rewrote the regulations before Judge Baer ruled.) The case has involved two preliminary injunction hearings, a three-day trial, status conferences, depositions, motions and briefs. Private civil rights attorneys say that work is worth $500,000, at least. Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (N.Y.C.L.U.), said he hasn't yet reviewed attorneys' time sheets.

The city hasn't said whether it will appeal that case-it has until May 8 to decide. If it doesn't, the N.Y.C.L.U. can put in an application for legal fees. If the city does appeal, the N.Y.C.L.U.'s clock will keep ticking.

But Mr. Siegel has won other free speech cases against the city. He represented Rosalie Harman, a Human Resources Administration employee who was suspended without pay after speaking to ABC News about how the agency handles child abuse cases. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals found the policy unconstitutional; Ms.Harman was reinstated with all lost benefits and salary, and was paid about $12,000 in damages. The N.Y.C.L.U. got $90,000.

The Mayor's First Amendment cases have cost taxpayers in other ways. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority-not a city agency-hired Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom at $416 an hour in its losing battle to defend its decision to take down bus ads for New York magazine that claimed the magazine was "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for." The Mayor did not find the ads humorous.

Actually, the city dodged a bullet in its most recent First Amendment case. When City Hall tried to withdraw funding for theBrooklyn Museum of Art over its controversial Sensation exhibit, the museum sued and won. Fortunately for City Hall, however, the museum's officials gave up their right to obtain legal fees as part of the settlement.

Of course, the city doesn't pay its lawyers based on the specific cases they do. But there's a very telling statistic in the Mayor's executive budget this year. In the last budget before Mr. Giuliani became Mayor, the Law Department-which defends the city in litigation-was allotted $60.8 million.

The most recent budget request was for $90.5 million.