This week, lunch at the Grill was totally booked, except for Friday when everyone disappeared for the long weekend. Pete Peterson was here only one day--he must have been too busy talking about the deficit! I'm surprised we're so busy for the time of year, but all of our events have sold out, too. On Thursday we held a private tasting for Brunello di Montalcino by Mastrojanni, a delicious Italian red wine. We had a lovely time--too much of a good time, with all that wine!

Ralph Lauren was here on Wednesday. So was Ms. Stewart and the actor Chris O'Donnell. Geraldo Rivera, who did his last wedding with us, also came in for lunch, and on his way out, he hugged Bill O'Shaughnessy, who was looking very charming as usual (but still no haircut!). On Thursday Tory Burch was here with a guest I didn't recognize, who was very stylish, of course.

We hosted a breakfast for Henry Kissinger, where he spoke at length about China and his new book. It was fabulous--the most well-attended breakfast in Four Seasons history. It shows that Mr. Kissinger is still in charge. Mr. Obama, you should listen to him!

Over the weekend, MasterChef Australia filmed at the Four Seasons, and I was one of the judges along with Paul Liebrandt and David Chang (Wylie Dufresne was supposed to come but he got sick!) We didn't even start filming until eleven o'clock at night, and were there until six a.m. but it was a lot of fun. The people who won made a chocolate gold cake.

I also got outside the restaurant this week--can you believe it? On Tuesday night someone invited me to Elaine's, two days before it closed. We drank bottles of 1996 Cheval Blanc that were outrageously inexpensive, and there were so many people I knew that I started to go around taking their orders--I was playing the maitre'd, and everyone thought I worked there! The best part about the night was the food. The last time I was at Elaine's was ten years ago, but the food was excellent. I had a steak that's as good as the one we serve in the Grill (don't tell anyone). I'm sad Elaine's closed--it's the end of an era. But at least I got to be there.

editorial@observer.com

Two tables down, Anthony Weiner had a very long lunch with another gentleman. The possible mayoral candidate drank iced tea and wore a pale gray suit with a blue shirt and no tie. Mr. Weiner greeted people as they filtered out, including Bill Rudin, who stopped for a few minutes at the politician's table.

We also had a senator from Washington State here on Monday. Her name is Maria Cantwell, and she must be a Democrat because she was here with Leo Hindery and he doesn't give money to Republicans.

Bethenny Frankel was supposed to come on Monday morning to celebrate her one-year anniversary on camera for her show Bethenny Ever After. (Remember when she got married here and peed in my wine bucket? I do.) But at the last minute, they had to fly to the West Coast. Maybe they are making a Bethenny movie!

Last week Ralph Lauren came in. He likes meat, so he usually orders a hamburger. While he was waiting for Barry Diller to arrive last Wednesday, Joel Klein said hello to fellow diners including Donald Marron and Pete Peterson, who was eating with Phoenix House founder Mitch Rosenthal. It was quite the literary week, with Simon and Schuster magnate Michael Korda lunching with Mary Higgins Clark, and Tuesday, Lynn Nesbit brought Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist!

The prince has been coming every day. On Monday, he arrived in a brown coat with mink trim and was so unhappy sitting alone that he left in the middle of his meal. On Tuesday, he had learned his lesson, so he brought a friend, a Lebanese gentleman.

I'm very happy that finally everyone is back from spring break, and it's getting to be the time of year that people start going out again. Even though it's freezing outside, we have our cherry blossoms up and our spring menu is in full swing. Last week a group of six young women came in for lunch and squeezed in at one table. They were celebrating a birthday and drank Dom Pérignon Rosé Champagne. I served them an enormous cotton candy, and they took it to go in a giant white plastic bag. Can you imagine!? Then they invited me to join them to drink Cristal in their white limousine outside.

Earlier in the week Henry Kissinger came in with Jane Hartley (Ralph Schlosstein's lovely wife). I don't know what they were doing together, but they were holding hands. Then at the end of their lunch, Mr. Kissinger leaned over and said to me, "Can you please call Pete Peterson and tell him that I am having a very amorous lunch with Jane Hartley." They have some little joke going—they both love her. It was very amusing. Harold Ford Jr. was also eating with a married woman. He came in with Jerry Speyer's beautiful wife, Katherine Farley.

Thursday was all money. The whole financial world came—Larry Fink, Steve Schwarzman, Joe Perella, Ralph Schlosstein, Pete Peterson. The only person missing was the chief of Goldman Sachs! You basically don't need to seat anyone on days like that because they all automatically go to their own table. Steve Rattner was back from vacation. He looks better than ever, 10 years younger. I think it's because he's doing what he loves.

Matthew Bronfman ate with two gentlemen at a banquette on Friday, right next to Beth Rudin DeWoody, who was lunching with the brand-new president of the New School, David Van Zant. At a nearby table, former Goldman Sachs partner Henry Cornell dined with associates. He now operates a winery in Napa Valley. His wine is outstanding!

And Clinton crony Vernon Jordan dined with Don Marin. I don't know why President Obama didn't pick him for chief of staff. I would like to have a chief of staff like Vernon Jordan. Can you imagine how many attractive women there would be in the administration?

Julian Niccolini is the co-owner of the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan.

Hotelier Jonathan Tisch and restaurateur Drew Nieporent also piled on, during a Friars Club-style roast of Mr. von Bidder and his charismatic partner, Julian Niccolini, in celebration of the renowned midtown power-lunching spot's 50th anniversary. It was a fitting tribute for a place where even the most high-profile patrons are served with a good ribbing from time to time.

"At the very least, these guys are extortionists," charged the gossip columnist Ms. Smith. "Have you ever examined your bill?"

Ms. Smith went so far as to suggest that the pair were somehow part of a post-World War II plot against America: "After World War II ended, those of us who weren't born yesterday thought all our problems with the Axis powers had ended. We thought we had the Italians and the Germans right where we wanted them. ... Their contemporary descendants have made a fabulous comeback here ... they are at the Four Seasons, where they pretend to be restaurateurs while plotting the downfall of our bank accounts!"

She added, "Alex will probably defend himself by saying he's Swiss, or something like that, and Julian will say he's from right at the top of Italy ... he's almost French!"

Most of the jokes centered on the restaurant's hefty menu prices—the domestic diva Ms. Stewart, for one, looked forward to the day when she would have to pay $85 for a baked potato—or, Mr. Niccolini's flirtatious modus operandi.

Bob Grimes, vice president of Citymeals on Wheels, the beneficiary of the evening's $300-per-person five-course dinner, asked Mr. Niccolini to promise to (a) stop hanging out with reputed sex addict David Duchovny, (b) stop calling his private parts "La Conquistador," and (c) remove the "oral exam" section of the female employment application.

Mr. Grimes also called on all the ladies in the room to prominently “return the keys to [Mr. Niccolini's] private apartment.” A lengthy line quickly formed to the podium. Prominent publicist Susan Magrino and even Mr. von Bidder's wife, Sandra von Bidder, joined in.

Italian chef Cesare Casella, nicknamed the "Swami of Salami," presented Mr. Niccolini with the gift of a four-foot-long sausage. Mr. Niccolini's wife, Lisa Niccolini, accepted it on his behalf, noting, "It's not as big as the original." Mr. Niccolini later used it to take a swing at Vanity Fair writer Frank DiGiacomo.

Mr. von Bidder's near invisibility next to his showy partner was another recurring joke. "Where's Andrew?" pondered Ms. Stewart. "Oh, it's Alex." She added, "This is what happens when you are the lesser of two evils."

Ms. Stewart also took aim at the famous eatery's decor: "The walls say Phillip Johnson," she said, "but the trees say Howard Johnson."

Blackstone Group co-founder Mr. Peterson presented a video in tribute to "the greatest restaurateur in New York." An image of Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni soon appeared on four giant flat-screens lining the pool room, drawing lots of laughs. Mr. Peterson then launched into another video, mockingly exposing the secrets of the restaurant's kitchen, where empty wine bottles with fancy labels are refilled with cheap boxed wine and steaks are served after time on the floor.

Perhaps the biggest laughs came during rival restaurateur Mr. Nieporent's profanity-laced spiel at the podium, during which the Nobu owner even took aim at other roasters.

"Sirio, I love you," Mr. Nieporent said to Mr. Maccioni, "but someone should have told you this is a roast, not a fucking wake! You would've been funnier reading from the fucking menu!"

And to Michael Mondavi, Mr. Nieporent advised, "stick to the wine business!"

He also took aim at fellow restaurateur Danny Meyer, who was not present. "Danny Meyer was supposed to be here, but the Zagats called," Mr. Nieporent said, referring to the couple behind the popular restaurant-rating guidebooks, "and he's walking their fucking dog!"

Mr. Nieporent complimented the Four Seasons owners—whom he called "the Siegfried & Roy of the restaurant business" and "the most unlikely pair since Rocco DiSpirito and Cloris Leachman showed up on Dancing With the Fucking Stars"—for their Robin Hood–like approach to fine dining. "Rob from the rich and give to the poor," he said. "Rob from Pete Peterson and give to [Four Seasons partner] Edgar Bronfman!"

The occassion was Mr. Niccolini's birthday—his 21st, if you believe the winking invite.

"Fifty-six, actually," noted the irreverent impresario, dressed dapperly as ever in a pinstriped suit and red tie.

So that's, what, 21 shots plus 35 shots?

"Absolutely, I think we should do that!" the good-humored Mr. Niccolini told the Daily Transom before turning to greet other guests.

WCBS-2 news anchor Maurice DuBois chatted with ladies by the bar, while Fashion Week organizer Fern Mallis snapped photos of the stylish crowd and gabbed about her new Bravo reality TV series, Fashion Show, hosted by Isaac Mizrahi.

The evening was more or less a prelude to the far bigger bash on Tuesday, May 5, when the illustrious restaurant itself turns 50. For real.

London's Financial Times recently attributed its longevity to "consistency, charisma and the peculiar nature of power and celebrity."

A full roster of prominent New Yorkers, including Blackstone Group's Pete Peterson, hotelier Jonathan Tisch, and domestic diva Martha Stewart, are lined up for a "classic comedy roast" of the owners, Mr. Niccolini and partner Alex von Bidder.

Yes, it's payback time for Mr. Niccolini, who seems to thrive on giving his power-broker guests a good ribbing from time to time.

"If you haven't been insulted by Julian, you are a nobody," as one financier by the unfortunate name of John Holmes recently told New York magazine.

“It could be bad," Mr. Niccolini predicted of the roast, in an interview with The Observer's Eight-Day Week. "It’s very easy to dig up dirt on people these days. You just Google people's names and there you have it. Thank God I've only been married once."

Pete Peterson, the co-founder and senior chairman of the Blackstone Group, and the chairman emeritus of the massively powerful Council on Foreign Relations, has bought that organization’s apartment at the huge Imperial House co-op on East 69th Street. According to city records, he paid the council $3,040,000.

Why would Mr. Peterson, who bought David Geffen’s $37.5 million duplex on Fifth Avenue last year, pick up a petite co-op? “Let me give you the background,” Mr. Peterson said after returning The Observer’s phone call, much to The Observer’s surprise. He explained that Leslie Gelb, the council’s so-called Board Senior Fellow and its president from 1993 to 2003, plus a Pulitzer winner for his work on The Times’ “star wars” series, was given the Imperial co-op when he became the foreign policy group’s leader in 1993.

“Part of the original deal with Les was that the council owned the apartment and rented it to him, and a couple of things came up that changed the situation,” he said. “A board member raised the question as to whether it would be proper for the council to continue to own the property given the fact that he had not been president for five years.”

Mr. Peterson, who is worth $2.5 billion, according to the Forbes 400, handled the prickly situation like a (wealthy) maestro. “I said, ‘Look, I don’t want any questions to be raised about this; why don’t I just buy the apartment?’”

Mr. Gelb and his family will continue to live in the co-op. “It’s perfect for them,” Mr. Peterson said. “It’s not a large apartment—has kind of a small dinning room and a small living room, and I don’t know whether there are two bedrooms or three but they’re rather small. … What I really like is that they like it.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Peterson will have his new 12-room duplex on Fifth, which he said isn’t massive either, at least square footage wise. “The apartment itself is not large. My wife did not want a large apartment, and neither did I. I basically wanted a terrace.”

Does Mr. Peterson own any other real estate for friends or colleagues? “I don’t think I own anything else,” he said. He paused. “I know I don’t. This was just done as recognition of the tremendous job Les did, and the job he’s doing.”

mabelson@observer.com

The deal represents the second-biggest co-op sale in New York City history, behind only Rupert Murdoch's $44 million buy at 834 Fifth.

In exchange, Mr. Peterson has the 12-room duplex penthouse at 810 Fifth Avenue, which fickle Mr. Geffen bought just last year for $31.5 million. Most recently, in an article last week in the NY Sun, Mr. Geffen was said to be selling for only $34 million. Such chump change!

Despite his steep price, this buyer belongs in the building. As New York magazine pointed out when the deal was first rumored, the co-op building used to house Richard Nixon, the Blackstone man’s boss when he was the Secretary of Commerce.

Fittingly, Governor Nelson Rockefeller was once in the penthouse: Nelson’s little brother David preceded Mr. Peterson as a chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations; and older brother John III was a pal of the Blackstone boy’s too.

We are presently living in—or through—the Year of the Rooster, an apt name for a time in which strutting and crowing have become behavioral imperatives and hallmarks of style. But if we set China aside for a minute, I thought: Why not construct a zodiac specific to the news-dominating fauna of post-postmodern Wall Street finance capitalism? We could have the Year of the Trump, the Year of the Milken, the Year of the Grubman, the Year of the Meriweather, the Year of the Smartest Guys in the Room. So what about this year? Well, how about 2005 as the Year of the Schwarzman?

This has been quite an annus mirabilis for Steve Schwarzman, C.E.O. of the Blackstone Group. A breakout year, you might say. The chairmanship of the Kennedy Center came his way. The splendors of his lifestyle and the glittering pearls of his career were recorded in a long article in the Business section of the Sunday Times. Many saw it as a puff piece; others, this writer included, saw it as an egregious lapse of judgment on the part of the subject. Had I been asked, I would have advised Mr. Schwarzman—whom I barely know, but who seems to me to be a pleasant enough little chap, always well turned out, and with a bright smile for the masses—to forbear. Much better to be a mystery man, a shadowy, discreet puller of strings and pusher of buttons.

The thing is, if one wishes to be taken seriously, one should not be reported in the company of the sort of people for whom serious folk are never at home, the sort found with regularity in what is, for social butterflies, climbers and like-motivated assholes, the kind of schooling ground that the Farallon Islands are for great white sharks: David Patrick Columbia’s New York Social Diary, a monkey house in Prada that anyone with a developed sense of the ridiculous must relish.

But anyone on the way up is entitled to a few mistakes, say I. Which brings me to the two news items that occasioned these reflections.

The first was that Mr. Schwarzman has bought the Water Mill house belonging to Susan (and her late husband Carter) Burden for a reported $34 million, or a mere $1 million less than was received for Asher Durand’s Kindred Spirits by the New York Public Library, on whose board Mr. Schwarzman sits. This is a juxtaposition I need not dwell on, although it may account for the several worried calls I’ve received since the announcement of Mr. Schwarzman’s election to the board of the Frick Collection. Well, we shall just have to see, shan’t we?

Many have been the happy hours I have spent at the “Burden house,” as it will always be known to people with any memory. Its sale marks the closing of an era. Certainly it’s a trophy property worthy of the others in the Schwarzman collection: the big apartment at 740 Park Avenue, a.k.a. “the old Steinberg apartment,” and a house in Palm Beach, also said to be a landmark.

I must say I do find it amusing that this acquisition puts Mr. Schwarzman right around the corner, more or less (in the way Bosnia is right around the corner from Serbia, or the Hatfields lived right around the corner from the McCoys) from Blackstone co-founder Pete Peterson, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, which the same administration that handed Mr. Schwarzman the Kennedy Center plum has marginalized to the point of irrelevance in this nation’s power structure.

What relations are now between the two, I cannot say, but one hears ….

I can’t help thinking of Dante (Purgatorio, XI): Credette Peterson ... tener lo campo, e ora ha Schwarzman il grido. Oh, isn’t it always the way? If they’re not upset about who gets the money, they’re upset about who gets the ink.

Of equal interest was the announcement the other day that Blackstone is raising a buyout fund of $12.5 billion. That’s a lot of money. Where is it coming from? Participants weren’t identified, other than certain funds of the State of New Jersey, but their commitment came to less than 1 percent.

I find this really interesting to speculate about. As I see it, the key word here has to be “China.” Maybe not as an investor going in, but more than likely as a key prospect when it comes to exit strategy. After all, the point of buying something is to sell it: The question is, to whom? Who will be our next Greater Fool? This is the question the shrewdest minds on Wall Street have always asked as they crank up a new scheme.

Well, there are the Chinese, with all those dollars. Haven’t they tried to buy Unocal? Maytag? Plays itself, doesn’t it? This way, the greenback holders based in Shanghai and Beijing and points elsewhere will be able to avoid messy takeover fights, will be able to do one-stop asset diversification. Not that I think this is necessarily a bad thing. Quite the contrary: If the Blackstones of this world should be the instruments to bring about a much-needed enfoldment of China into the private U.S. domestic economy, then the Year of the Schwarzman will be an occasion as much for celebration as for mirth.

Mr. Peterson, chairman of the Blackstone Group L.P., put his beachfront house on Fowler Lane on the market for $15 million during the second week of March and was simultaneously offering a little over $10 million for a house of comparable size on Rose Hill Road, abutting Mecox Bay, according to Hamptons brokers.

The Secretary of Commerce under President Richard Nixon, Mr. Peterson and his wife, Joan Ganz Cooney, founder of Children's Television Workshop, bought the oceanfront property, located in the village of Watermill, L.I., in the late 1980's. The three-story house, built in 1982, has cedar shingles, brick terraces and several decks; inside, there are six bedrooms and eight and a half baths. The house sits on about four acres of land and has a private swimming pool, its own small pond and tennis courts.

Meanwhile, Hamptons real estate sources say, Mr. Peterson is negotiating to buy a recently built house on a five-acre property on nearby Rose Hill Road, with 350 square feet of frontage on Mecox Bay. "They did like the idea that the house was brand-new," said a broker familiar with the Petersons' house-hunting. The Rose Hill Road house, which is on the market for $13.5 million, has many of the same attributes as the couple's current property: swimming pool, tennis courts, a private pond, six bedrooms.

If Mr. Peterson and Ms. Cooney go through with their pending deal, they'll gain one new amenity: grass. "The house they're buying has acres of grass … certainly more controllable than acres of sand dune," said the source.

Mr. Peterson did not return a call for comment.

Amagansett, L.I.

WINCHELL BIOGRAPHER GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO FARMHOUSE. Tinseltown chronicler Neal Gabler, who wrote the definitive biography Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity , made sure there was a first-look-style clause in his lease for the 1920's house in Amagansett that he has rented and lived in year-round for the last five years, so it wouldn't be sold out from under him. Mr. Gabler finally took advantage of the fine print and bought the renovated farmhouse for $731,500.

The house, on 1.5 acres on Dennistoun Drive, not far from Gardiner's Bay, was briefly on the market in 1993 for $750,000; when it didn't sell, it was taken off the market and continued to be rented. Brokers who have since then approached the owner, a Canadian woman, have been told that Mr. Gabler had the right to make the first offer if she wanted to sell it. According to Hamptons brokers, the sale of the house took place directly between the author and his landlord.

The house contains three bedrooms, three baths and a loft space. "It's a truly elegant, post-and-beam-style home with a lot of class and character," said Stuart Epstein, owner of Devlin McNiff Real Estate in East Hampton. "It's a very beautiful part of East Hampton. Very un-Hollywood."

Mr. Gabler, whose most recent book, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality , was published last year, shares the house with his wife, Christina Gabler, and his two daughters, Laurel and Tanne. He could not be reached for comment.

Upper East Side

1000 Park Avenue

Four-bed, three-bath, 3,000-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $3.3 million. Selling: $2.95 million.

Charges: $4,100; 45 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: eight months.

10-ROOM CO-OP OF JAILED CITIBANK V.P. GETS $3 MILLION. Former Citibank vice president Carlos Gomez bought this apartment with his wife Alison Spear, an architect, for $1.6 million in April 1995. Last July, Mr. Gomez was sentenced to 55 months in prison for defrauding his employer of some $47 million. In February, their 10-room co-op on Park Avenue near 84th Street was sold for $3 million. The sale is the end to a bull-market fairy tale of sorts: The market was in full bloom and the building, commissioned in 1915 by Alexander and Leo Bing, famous turn-of-the-century developers, and designed by Emery Roth, had just gone co-op, when the couple moved in with their two children. Ms. Spear redesigned the apartment to local acclaim (there was a glossy spread in Quest magazine). Now, another couple's real estate reverie has picked up where the Gomezes left off.

Upper West Side

125 West 92nd Street

Three-bed, three-bath, 1,200-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $375,000. Selling: $340,000.

Charges: $840; 45 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: nine months.

MAN DISCOVERS CHILDPROOF BUILDING ON UPPER WEST SIDE. There are only four apartments in this co-op brownstone near Broadway, but the ground rules of its shareholders are as rigid as some addresses on Park Avenue. First, every owner has to approve a would-be buyer; second, potential buyers with children and pets seem unlikely to pass muster, since the building is currently petless and there is only one child in the building. That presented a challenge for the parents of the 6-year-old boy (the exception), who decided to upgrade by a room or two. They were attracted to two two-bedroom apartments that they could combine at the Westbury House, a condominium under construction on West 86th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, and signed a contract before the construction was even completed. Back at the brownstone, their broker had to host some 15 Sunday open houses until the right buyer came along: a pet- and child-free single guy who works for a British publishing house. The co-op board gave unanimous nods, and the rules remain intact. Broker: Corcoran Group (Marlena Wood).

West 78th Street, near West End Avenue

Five-story town house.

Asking: $1.35 million. Selling: $1.3 million.

Time on the market: one week.

THE PARENT TRAP. Last December, as the holidays neared, Nina Sankovitch and her husband Jack Menz were hoping for a new home. "We were in a two-bedroom," explained Ms. Sankovitch. "Last April, we [already] had two kids, and my husband had a daughter from a previous marriage, and she moved in with us, and I was pregnant and due to deliver in June." After their third son arrived, the couple began an Upper West Side-centered real estate search in earnest. Strapped for space, Ms. Sankovitch and Mr. Menz–who were by then sleeping in the living room of their apartment at 81st Street and Broadway–began looking in upper Westchester and Connecticut. "We really just wanted to stay in New York City," said Ms. Sankovitch. "We love the school my 5-year-old is in, P.S. 9. And my husband works full-time, and I work part-time, and we didn't want to spend any time commuting." One Sunday in December, Ms. Sankovitch's sister called to tell her that the perfect house had been advertised in The New York Times . The couple lost no time: They went to see the house on West 78th Street, near West End Avenue, the next day, returned with an engineer the day after that, and finally, made an offer. It was accepted. Ms. Sankovitch admits that the house, which was passed down through the same family for nearly 100 years and finally sold by an elderly widow, needs a total renovation. But the treasure they found in the back yard was priceless. "There was an old trunk in a shed in the back yard," she said, "and it's just packed with letters in little one-inch stacks, tied with ribbon … letters dating from the late 1800's, and up to 1912. Mainly from a mother to her children. They are all so touching." Does it say if she ever had to give up her bed and sleep in the living room? Broker: Orsid Realty (Olga Fisher); Corcoran Group (Liane Miller).

Clinton

321 West 55th Street

Two-bed, one-bath, 1,000-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $385,000. Selling: $370,000.

Charges: $928; 60 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

MUCH ADO ABOUT MOVING. "I used to play stickball in front of this building," said broker Michael Pangalos, who was raised a few doors down from this co-op situated between Eighth and Ninth avenues. "Back then, there was a newsstand where you could get an egg cream and a pretzel, and read a comic book." The newsstand is now a grocery, but the character of the quiet, residential block remains mostly intact. Mr. Pangalos said the single man who owned this apartment had mixed feelings about selling. Initially, he put it on the market last June for $460,000; six weeks later, he changed his mind. In September, the seller tested the waters again, this time at $385,000. A buyer signed a contract to buy the apartment for $370,000 in November; the deal was finalized in February. The single man will continue to live in the building. So what was all the fuss about? Broker: Corcoran Group (Michael Pangalos).

West Village

35 Bethune Street (Pickwick House)

Four-bed, 2.5-bath, 1,650-square-foot prewar loft condo.

Asking: $850,000. Selling: $830,000.

Charges: $948. Taxes: $526.

Time on the market: two weeks.

FOUR OXFORD-BOUND TOTS RULE WELL-READ TRIPLEX. It all boils down to a good education. An English family, who shipped into town at the beginning of 1998 and rented a two-bedroom apartment in midtown, was looking for more permanent shelter near one of the city's more desirable public schools. The family's broker, Mitchell Speer, showed them a number of properties downtown and in the Flower District, all of which were not in school districts deserving of the three kids–and the fourth on its way. A triplex in an 1883 building–with an Anglo name like Pickwick House, no less–which had been a publishing house in its previous incarnation, made the grade. Never mind that the bedrooms are on the claustrophobic side: When the family gets cabin fever, they can repair to the weekend house they keep in the Berkshires. Broker: William B. May (Mitchell Speer).

"David!" exclaimed one woman in a manner that suggested she and Mr. Tang had bumped into each other in a crowded restaurant. Before a fashion grandee like Mr. Tang, the Hong Kong-famous style magnate, it was important not to seem desperate, but the situation was indeed dire. Just 20 minutes earlier, as confusion reigned, the scene resembled some weird international incident as, every so often, a cashmere-coated invitee scrambled under one of the barricades and made a mad dash for the doors of the store (Must … reach … a publicist!) as cops and security guards lunged to halt their progress. But Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's police force had quickly gained control of the situation, and the thwarted revelers could do little but brandish their lapel pins and wave their invitations as Mr. Tang clutched his bullhorn and the cops kept shouting again and again: "The store is closed. Nobody is getting in. Please come back tomorrow."

New York has always been about attaining the unattainable, and that includes working one's way behind the most unyielding velvet ropes. But in recent weeks, the city's nightlifers have been pushing and shoving, making asses of themselves to get into the lowest of all social events: store openings.

"Come back tomorrow": What was the point in that ? This throng of alleged V.I.P.'s had no interest in visiting Mr. Tang's store in broad daylight, did not want to come back tomorrow when any old German tourist was invited to fondle the $800 Mein Lap jackets and the $16 Mao coffee mugs. They wanted entree now, so they could join Sarah Ferguson, her mother Susan Barrantes, British journalist David Frost, cross-dressing comedian Barry Humphreys, fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and a host of other people who looked like extras in a Peter Greenaway film and who at that moment were guzzling Veuve-Clicquot, snarfing roasted almonds and smugly staring out at them.

Ultimately, these invitees (The Transom among them, though we have a professional excuse) are falling for one of the oldest tricks in the P.R. manual: Invite two to three times the number of people that a boutique can hold, and suddenly the melee outside makes a haberdashery look like Studio 54 for a night.

Inside Shanghai Tang, though, the only decadence that was being peddled was an outer-borough version: expensive clothes displayed in luxurious, well-lit surroundings. Perhaps it is only logical that in the new, more accessible New York-the New York with an 8,000 Dow Jones industrial average and no dark, edgy spaces-store openings can lead to pandemonium.

A man with the self-confidence to wear yellow pants is not easily embarrassed, and Mr. Tang's appearance outside his store around 7:15 P.M. helped make the evening even more of a clublike sadomasochistic experience. Actually, it wasn't just the pants. Mr. Tang looked like he'd been outfitted by the costume designer for What's New, Pussycat? He wore black velvet slippers with crests on them and a slouchy black velvet Mao jacket. His bullhorn was a mod white. He blamed the fuzz for the crowd control taking place outside his store. "I'm sorry, it is the police," he said, unamplified, to the angry queue. He did not sound apologetic. Perhaps it was his overwrought English accent.

Inside, he had been using his bullhorn to tell people who had somehow made it past the front door to "please leave" if they'd been there more than 25 minutes. Now, outside, Mr. Tang held out little hope that those fuming out in the rain would gain access on this night. "I'll be here in the morning," he told one person.

The police had decided to shut Mr. Tang's event down, but the cops and security guards trying to keep order on the street explained that it was only because between 1,500 and 2,000 people had been invited by Loving & Weintraub, the publicity firm handling the event, to a space that holds only about 800. (An executive of the firm denied this, saying that the invitations, which came in elaborate boxes that held a mod green silk frame, were too expensive to send out in such numbers.)

The Transom asked Mr. Tang about this, and as he surveyed the crowd, he quickly spun it to his favor, explaining that most parties have a 60 percent to 70 percent R.S.V.P. rate. Mr. Tang said that his R.S.V.P. rate was more like 98 percent.

The evening had begun with some sort of feng shui ritual dance that involved men in lion costumes. The intent was to bring good luck to Mr. Tang's new store, which is directly across Madison Avenue from the now-in-Chapter 11 Barneys. (Mr. Tang has said that if fellow fashion mogul Dickson Poon succeeds in taking over Barneys, their neck of the woods will be called the "Poon-Tang Corner.")

Instead, the spectacle attracted scores of uninvited guests and eventually one police emergency services vehicle, two squad cars and three all-terrain vehicles. Still, Mr. Tang maintained that he did not doubt the powers of feng shui. "This is minor," he said. "There were no altercations."

Aaah, but there were a lot of unhappy people. Many were still standing behind the barricades. When The Transom mentioned this, Mr. Tang's eyeglasses magnified the steely look in his eyes. "Well, the world is full of unhappy occurrences," he said.

Indeed, another one had occurred just a few blocks away on Nov. 5, when Bulgari decided to fete its newly renovated store with a disco party. And what better way to illustrate where the jeweler falls on the taste scale than to have Donald Trump, his ex-wife Ivana Trump, "actress" Elizabeth Berkley and model Marcus Schenkenberg moving through a crowd that had the density and moisture content of a mosh pit. Outside, even in the November air, a United Nations of unfortunates were still sweating as they clamored to get in. (One man stuck at the back of the herd turned aggressively jingoistic as he began repeating over and over to the people in his way: "Do you have a green card? Do you have a green card?") Again, the excuse was used: The crowd inside was at capacity. Yet, a small army of door people and security guys who resembled an understudy cast to The Usual Suspects continued letting people like lawyer Richard Golub inside.

Ilaria Alber, a publicist at Nike Communications Inc., the firm that organized the Bulgari event, said that the turnout far exceeded her firm's expectations. "We had a list, but at some point the list became sort of irrelevant because it was so overcrowded."

The Bulgari event occurred during fashion week and, as Ms. Alber said, those who run with the fashion crowd "are used to chaos. They kind of seek it out." She also added that "Nothing drives people more than what everybody else is doing.… It's just like how everybody wants to go to Balthazar."

Ms. Alber added that Nike didn't overcrowd Bulgari on purpose, but she said, "Making something challenging … definitely adds to the intrigue or the cachet of an event." That and, of course, Veronica Bulgari getting down on the dance floor.

Not long after Mr. Tang re-entered his store, the police began to allow those diehard invitees who had been shivering behind the barricades into the store. By then, Ms. Ferguson and most of the boldfaceable names had already left. Still, the pushing and shoving resumed. A wan-looking Nick Rhodes, the keyboardist for Duran Duran, stood in the crowd, looking positively knackered as members of his entourage told him they could wait no longer. The rain began to fall harder. "It's just a store!" cried William Taubman, son of Sotheby's owner Alfred Taubman, as he was jostled from all sides. But in the line he remained. He was just minutes away from getting inside.

Fired by Fred

Ex- Daily News editors are not the only souls who identify with Pete Hamill's unhappy departure from the tabloid.

On Nov. 10, at an event celebrating the publication of Our Town: Images and Stories From the Museum of the City of New York held at the museum, Mr. Hamill was chatting with a group of people, including the novelist Louis Auchincloss, when he was approached by a vivacious blonde who introduced herself as Cynthia Drasner, wife of the Daily News ' stickball-playing chief executive Fred Drasner. According to sources who overheard the conversation, Ms. Drasner told Mr. Hamill, "He fired me, too," an apparent reference to her recent separation from Mr. Drasner. One witness said that Mr. Hamill, who resigned from the News under pressure on Sept. 4, broke out laughing and replied: "I hope you did better than I did."

Contacted by phone, Ms. Drasner confirmed that she introduced herself to Mr. Hamill at the party and held a brief conversation with him, but she insisted that those who heard her make the remark "must be mistaken."

"I just wanted to say hello to him," she said. "He's someone I've admired." Mr. Drasner did not return calls, and Mr. Hamill was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Restaurateur Humor

Julian Niccolini should consider it payback for the potatoes.

Mr. Niccolini, the co-general manager of the Four Seasons Restaurant, recently took possession of a letter that Pete Peterson, a Four Seasons regular and the chairman of the investment banking firm, the Blackstone Group, sent to Mr. Niccolini.

Mr. Peterson had read The Transom's Nov. 24 report about the fit that Mr. Niccolini had thrown at the American Automobile Association's Five Diamond Award dinner on Nov. 10 when the Four Seasons Restaurant was confused with the unrelated hotel of the same name. And he decided to yank Mr. Niccolini's chain one more time.

"I was not surprised that you lost your Italian temper (forgive the redundancy) at the recent A.A.A. Five Diamond Award dinner," Mr. Peterson wrote. "Psychologists tell us that anger is often in response to fear. You have good reason to be fearful of the profound changes at the Four Seasons Restaurant that will soon be implemented by Blackstone."

The Blackstone Group owns Four Seasons Hotels in Philadelphia and Atlanta, and, piggybacking on the confusion that occurred at the Five Diamond dinner, Mr. Peterson wrote that Blackstone was "delighted to hear that the Four Seasons Restaurant was part of our Four Seasons Hotel portfolio," adding: "We have a number of obvious and significant changes that should be made in the management of the Four Seasons Restaurant. And we are, of course, happy that we now have the license to make the changes."

Mr. Peterson concluded: "I know this news might effect [sic] your otherwise irrepressible ambiance as you approach Thanksgiving. But as close as we are-and we are about to get much closer-I wanted to get this news to you promptly."

Mr. Peterson told The Transom that the letter was intended strictly as a joke ("I love Julian," he said) and recounted that once, on his birthday, Mr. Niccolini sent him a huge box of raw potatoes. Earlier in the year, Mr. Peterson said that he had jokingly complained of the price of the restaurant's baked potatoes, and that Mr. Niccolini had sent him the gift "to make up for any overpricing."

Mr. Niccolini could not be reached for comment, but Mr. Peterson said that the Four Seasons restaurateur had already responded to the letter. During one of his last visits there, the investment banker said that former Gov. Mario Cuomo approached his table and told him that "Julian" had hired him as counsel.

The Transom Also Hears

… Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was having a swell time at Gallagher's Steak House until a crowd began to trickle in for the premiere party for David Mamet's new play, The Old Neighborhood . Even though aged teacher turned paparazzo Aubrey Rubin was hovering at his table and showing off a pen with a "Rudolph Giuliani" signature, the Mayor, who was sitting with his press secretary, Cristyne Lategano, and another unidentified man, wanted out. He dropped a fifty on the table, and his communications director drew her cell phone. For once, the Mayor Who Is Everywhere in New York had to admit that "I didn't see the play" before he and his dinner companions slipped by the coat-check logjam. He had an excuse, however: "I just had a rehearsal for Saturday Night Live ." His press office did not return The Transom's call.

-George Gurley