Jared Kushner, Katie Holmes and Mike Bloomberg (PMc)

- The intimidatingly assiduous Peggy Siegal greets people at the door; thanks us for coming to celebrate party with The New York Observer. "We are The New York Observer!" We cry. She doesn't even pause. "Well, it's great to see you anyway."

-Terry McDonell: I've always loved the Observer, I have great respect for Peter Kaplan. The coverage of everything I was interested in New York in the past 25 years was reflected in The Observer at the highest level.

- Ray Kelly recalls the last time he was at the Four Seasons. "[We] feel like you never leave," we tell the Police Commissioner. His reply: "A lot of people feel that way."

- Spike Lee keeps on puffy coat all evening, talks to Katie Holmes, Donald Trump. Catch tail end of his conversation with Mr. Trump: "Well, that's one thing we agree on."

- Mayor Bloomberg gets onstage, proceeds to riff about slipping Harvey Weinstein a script (Bloomie on Bloomie), Cory Booker ("The handsomest mayor West of the Hudson") and The Observer ("It's OK when you needle somebody else, but not me.")

- Michael Shannon confounds half the party with his celebrity status. "What famous person is that?" we are asked more than several times. We finally after give up and refer them to Boardwalk Empire after several of our "the Future General Zod" joke receives blank stares.

- Nick Denton refuses to take photo with Rupert Murdoch because it's "too obvious."

-Chuck Close: I love the Observer almost in spite of myself. At first it was a guilty pleasure. When I go to Europe and can't read you, I get really upset.

- Mayor Cory Booker meets Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s press secretary/Girls actress Audrey Gelman. Mr. Booker finds a way to bring the conversation back around to Star Trek.

- Game Change’s Emmy-winning screenwriter Danny Strong still getting recognized for his years on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he's a good sport, and challenges fanboy to name the one episode of the hit show that was nominated for an Emmy. (Answer: "Hush.")

-Former editor Peter Kaplan begs off with the excuse that he is trying to wean himself off of anti-anxiety medication.

-Ronald Perelman: I love the publication! I think everybody here is great. I think this is the best collection of New Yorkers I've seen in 20 years!

- Jay McInerney inquires about the after-party; never shows up.

Kim Stolz and Amanda Leigh Dunn, co-owners of The Dalloway

"We've met before," purred Kim Stolz, an impish grin on her face. The Transom was standing in a dark corner with the most famous lesbian to come out, as it were, of America's Next Top Model. We were at the launch party for  The Dalloway, a bar/restaurant Ms. Stolz co-owns with fellow reality heroine Amanda Leigh Dunn, of The Real L-Word fame..

The Transom couldn’t recall previously meeting Ms. Stolz , though we remembered her infamous kiss with a curious competitor during Cycle 5 of ANTM, as well as her time as a VJ and correspondent on MTV News. Even in her new role as Citigroup vice president and part owner of the hottest lesbian spot to hit New York in decades, she was unmistakable.

"I feel like the New York lesbian scene was kind of different, more diverse when I was growing up," said the Manhattan native. "But recently it's been confined to dive bars and clubby atmospheres."

The Dalloway, on the other hand, is a gorgeous, two-story affair on Broome and Thompson. The downstairs is a mix between a lounge and a club, where every Thursday night one can find the "Girls Party"  downstairs, where gyrating models and bookish butches dance with abandon.  The night the Transom attended, Samantha Ronson was DJing, and the area around her raised booth served as the dance floor.

But it’s the upstairs that makes The Dalloway unique. It’s a restaurant with freestanding antlers on all the tables and the kind of hipster-meets-high-end vibe that makes it difficult to place on the Kinsey Scale. (OpenTable.com resorts to the tortured locution "lesbian implied.")

"We never planned to have food, originally," said Ms. Stolz. "But we were approached by Vanessa Miller, and she told us that she loved our idea, and that we should at least agree to a tasting. And who turns down a free tasting?"

Ms. Miller, a 24-year-old with elfin features moved from Boston to work at The Dalloway, was clever to offer an introductory freebie, since, as we learned over the course of the night, she just might be New York's next gastronomical wunderkind. As silver trays bustled by, we snatched small spoonfuls of delicately crafted fare: a take on fried chicken and mashed potatoes that featured a small cube of lightly-battered poultry on top of a cloud of fluffy polenta; an arugula salad with a dollop of avocado in a mysterious dressing that made our mouth almost decide to switch sides and become a vegetarian; and a parade of finger foods that put other holiday party catering to shame. Another guest, we noticed, had posted herself  near the kitchen so she could get first grab at the savory treat before they quickly disappeared into the mouths of The Dalloway's guests.

"Obviously, we couldn't say no once we tried the food," Ms. Stolz said. So they decided to broaden the idea of The Dalloway, to make it a place where one could "go bring parents from out of town to eat." While the 29-year-old Ms. Stolz said the door policy downstairs certainly didn’t demand queer credentials, the scene would be appeal to the "very LGBT community."

"And foodies," she added. Though obviously the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Happy New Year! (Robin Roemer Photography)

Nothing screams "The Mayans will be proven wrong this year!" quite like watching a young man swing from the rafters after hanging himself in a very loose adaptation of Macbeth, but for fans of the interactive production Sleep No More, there was no better way to ring in 2012. After getting an invitation from the Thane himself asking for our attendance a special gold and silver party at the McKittrick Hotel--where Sleep No More has been in residence since March with co-production companies PunchDrunk and Emursive--we arrived up not knowing quite what to expect.

Would we be allowed to remove our Eyes Wide Shut Italian Renaissance-style masks and talk after midnight, or, going with the show's traditional rule, would we be forced into an anonymous silent cheer when the countdown reached zero?

We shouldn't have worried: Emursive and Punchdrunk have done nothing except usurp the expected, and when the audience was corralled into the ballroom at 11 p.m., it wasn't just Macbeth's body that dropped: suddenly, the drapery from one wall descended, revealing a fully-stocked open bar. A strange, Zoolander-ish DJ appeared from one of the box seats, piping in DJ-remixes of dancehall music...1920's dancehall, that is. (Anyone looking for a dubstep version of ragtime classics should look into hiring this gentleman for their next event; he was marvelous.) It was a full fantasy played out on three levels of the hotel: besides the ballroom, bars were open in the faux-lobby "scene" room and in the cabaret that serves as the entrance to the show. Neat trick, not having to pay $8 for a drink (as the usual scotch and soda in the  cash-only bar in caberet will cost you).

And perhaps this was just something we missed during our first visit to the McKittrick, but did Sleep No More always have a hard candy emporium room, or was that just a special little kickback to the guests who paid $125 a ticket to come to the pre-show? (Those wanting entrance at 12:30 could make it for only $100...only $20 over regular admission price, but without the cost of having to be silent for three hours.) The males in our company had a delightful time stuffing their pockets full of hard licorice sweets, while the ladies--sans clothing holes to hoard things in--had to suffice by shoving a bunch of old mints into their cheeks and saving them for later; like chipmunks expecting a cold front.

Midnight was count down by cast members dressed up as different numbers, and when a working clock that read "Happy New Year" reached its final "r," several peacocked dancers in shimmering skivvies and flesh-colored leotards jumped up on what was previously the banquet table and proceeded to can-can. We finagled our way into the VIP lounge, where we shared a whiskey with the father-in-law of one of the producers, who, much like another tragic Shakespearean king, was affectionately showing off his three daughters to friends and close relations.

Before the bell struck twelve, we overheard the performer who had played our Macbeth engaging friends by dropping his sulking leer for a more fay posture, while the bartenders retained their English brogue throughout the course of the evening. (Now we know why none of the characters in the show talk...it would totally ruin the effect!)

As we were wished a solicitous New Year's Eve by a young woman serving drinks with a Scottish lilt, we tried to decipher whether her accent was real, or, like so many other things in Sleep No More, a pure fabrication. Either way, we agreed, it had the desired effect of keeping us in the realm of the source material for the rest of the evening...Shakespeare by way of Hitchcock; the perfect dreaded doomsday fantasy to ring in the end of days.