Last night was the third Pink Slip Party. We sent Kashmir Hill, associate editor at Above the Law, to survey the scene. Here are her findings.

The third Wall Street Pink Slip Party had the air of desperation of a singles’ mixer. And indeed, most of the attendees were recently separated… from their Wall Street employers.

Approximately 400 people turned up at the Public House in midtown Manhattan last night. The room was packed when we arrived circa 7 p.m. and started to clear out around 8. At the door were reps from the Ronald McDonald House gathering a suggested $20 donation, and handing out glow stick bracelets: pink for the laid off/looking for work, green for the hiring/recruiters, and blue for “neutral.” Judging from the blue-bracelet wearers we encountered, “neutral” translates to “hoping to pick up desperate ex-Wall Street babes.”

Most of those in green bracelets were recruiters. At the first two parties, there were more in-house HR folks; hiring freezes kept many away this time around, said organizer Rachel Pine of Fastbook.

The Public House was chosen as the venue for the monthly series of Pink Slip parties because one of its owners is a Philadelphia Stock Exchange trader who’s sympathetic to those who have moved from the stock market to the job market. Many attendees spent the evening huddled around the long bar. “The best value in coming to the event is the $2 Bud Light special,” said one 23-year-old layoff from a buy-side firm, who hadn’t talked to many people in green bracelets over the course of the night, but was having success getting fantastically drunk.

The more serious job seekers hovered near booths where two green-braceleted financial services headhunters sat conducting intense one-on-one interviews, reviewing resumes, and handing out cards. Which was out of place and bizarre in the middle of a jam-packed bar, but these are bizarre times. One grey-suited, pink-braceleted 32-year-old, jettisoned by Barclays three months ago, was waiting his turn in line at one of the booths, with a leather portfolio in hand, rather than a drink. There aren’t a lot of better options for finding work, he said. “Unless you make this personal connection with the headhunters, they won’t look out for you.”

Amen. But to make more of a connection, maybe he should try handing them a vodka tonic along with his resume.

Photos, after the jump.

From: [redacted]

Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 4:33 PM

To: Gabelli All

Subject: Holiday Party at The Water Club

Due to market volatility, we are shortening the cocktail hour. It will start promptly at 7:00 PM and end 7:30 PM. Please be there at 7:00 PM sharp.

One of the reasons we love the Swiss is that they live beyond their means, without apology. While some of the other banks negatively affected by subprime, someone’s drug problem, etc. are scaling back their holiday parties (for instance, Bear is holding its main event at the Sizzler and the plan is to skip out check), UBS is saying “$10 billion and counting writedown be damned, 2007’s winter solstice shall be the grandest of them all.” This year’s wealth management funfest will begin at 7 pm on the evening of the 17th at the Museum of Natural History. Now, I know some of you want to say, “Well, 2006’s party was at Rockefeller Center so, relatively speaking, this is a downgrade,” but you’re wrong. Whale beats tree. It’s that simple. Upgrade. (UBS’s IBD get together is tonight at 583 Park, which isn’t a bad venue for a unit maybe worth negative 22 billion dollars.)

• Monday:
Morgan Stanley (sales, trading & research), 583 Park Avenue (the Christian Science building), 6 pm

• Tuesday:
AIG (domestic brokerage group), Cipriani Wall Street, 5:30 pm

BSC, Flute, 6 pm (NB: all employees who work in units that lost Bear X number of dollars this year will be required to pay a cover.)

• Wednesday:
Cerberus, W (541 Lexington), 6 pm

Morgan Stanley (investment management), China Club, 7 pm (According to our MSIM tipster: “This will be a party worth crashing. All that is needed is a Morgan Stanley business card to get in. As an insider, this group has the best talent I have ever seen in this business. The assistants we have would make a porn star blush.” Carney’s been camped outside the club since we received this tip, so it’s assumed he’ll be attending if that’s a deciding factor for any of you.)

• Thursday:
Citi (FIG), 583 Park Avenue, 6 pm

Credit Suisse (alternative investments): Cipriani 23rd Street, 6 pm

Lehman Brothers (IBD): no idea where but maybe Pier Sixty and possibly at 6 pm

None of these events officially call for costumes but should you find yourself in the mood to mix things up, we suggest you take a cue from these geniuses:

In a terrific display of holiday togetherness, the employees of SAC Capital convened in Stamford last night to bask in the mediocrity and obscurity of the past year. To create the perfect atmosphere for such an event, the holiday gala was held in a plastic tent behind the company’s headquarters. Despite their better efforts, however, everyone seemed to have a good time, fueled by a live reggae/soul band (interesting choice) and several PMs dispensing bonuses by raining hundreds from a platform over the crowd (no one is really sure whether this was actually their bonus or if they will still be receiving one today). The whole night was summed up in the inspiring, albeit slurred, drunken cry overheard as people piled into taxis outside of the after party: “I can’t believe we fucking work at SAC. I mean, I’m a total idiot, you saw me tonight. And yet here I am.” A breakdown by the numbers:

Tonight’s parties are Citi at Paramount Bar (6 pm), BNP Paribas at South Street Seaport (7 pm), Jay Goldman & Co. (7:30 pm) at Del Posto, and Choice Energy at Bruno Jamais (5:30 pm) but WAY MORE IMPORTANTLY: SAC Capital in a tent behind the Stamford headquarters. We really feel like we should go but Jesus fucking Christ, Stamford? Additionally we don’t want go make the trek by ourselves and our roommate can’t go, even though we impressed upon her that this party is more or less her Everest. (The weak excuse? Tonight she has a date and afterwards will be knee-deep in planning her “big birthday orgy. Entry fee is waived for anyone who can prove yearly net income over $500,000. Oh, and Anal_yst is invited. And that guy from Hamilton.”)

In other news, the Lehman review:

“fid got off to a slow start. equities got started fast, then got too drunk to keep going. admins danced until the music died. damn dj. and then it emptied out to the after parties. fid was starting up at around 8 but then died fast too. everyone’s nervous about bonuses. equities thinks they’re gonna subsidize fid. fid is resigned to their fate. oh and no live band this year.”

Earlier: The Secret To SAC’s Success?

• Lehman Brothers: Tonight, 7 pm, Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers. Our tipster seems to think this means “there won’t be any writedown that the Street keeps talking about coz [sic] the bonuses will be announced before the party and I’d be pretty dumbstruck if those will be cut today—they had plenty of time to announce and prepare us for the worst!”

• Goldman Sachs (derivatives): Tonight, 6 pm, the Volstead

• Carlyle: Tonight, 7 pm, Central Park Boathouse. Would’ve been infinitely cooler if it were the Boat Basin but whatevs, live and let live.

• Citi (FIG): December 13, 6 pm, 583 Park Ave. Fun fact: this sometime party venue is a Christian Science church, which rents itself out for special events. The Scientists get a percentage of the revenue from each party, and still worship there during the week. “Christian Science” is inscribed in huge letters on the outside, and creeps us out every time we walk past it on the way home. We’ll be going, if only because Hank Paulson is rumored to be DJ’ing the event, and it’s been a while since we saw someone palm a basketball.

• Some firm called MJX Capital Advisors: December 14, 6 pm, Plataforma. There will apparently only be 7 people there but go anyway, hilarity will ensue.

Which is taking place tomorrow at Lotus. Yes, Lotus. The festivities begin at the usual time, but apparently the “real party is starting around ten,” which is when John Mack will be showing up, after having pregamed with us at Tortilla Flats, because, you know, when in Rome. Anal_yst will be TiVo’ing “Gossip Girl,” and he doesn’t even work at Morgan, so you know the expectations are high.

Among the more amusing items in our inbox this morning was an invitation to a party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn sporting the theme “Wall Street Circa 1987.”

“Two dark events are upon us: the end of my 20s and the beginning of the recession,” the woman throwing the party writes. “Let’s fight both Brooklyn style with a giant dirty bomb of a party.”

We’re taking this as a hopeful sign. If Steve Schwarzman’s lavish $5 million birthday party rang the bell at the top of the credit driven leverage buyout boom, a party thrown by Williamsburg hipsters build around downbeat market sentiment might be a sign of the bottom.

Dow Jones’s Evelyn Juan reports that Winthrop Smith Jr., son of the Merrill Lynch founding partner of the same name, is planning a little party next month for firm alums in New York. Mostly because he’s spent the last couple of years holed up in Vermont (running Sugarbush) and “really, really needs to get out” but also because it’s time to start reminiscing about the days when Merrill still gave out bonuses and wasn’t a stupendous failure. John Thain’s been invited, as has most of Citi (in order to make the MER guests look good), but guess who’s name is decidedly not on the list? Starts with an ‘S’, ends with a ‘tanley O’neal’ (also: starts with a ‘t,’ ends with an ‘ech sector,’ and a ‘J,’ ‘ohn Carney,’ though he plans on crashing and I may even come with, because I love the Time Square Doubletree). The burn isn’t really that surprising, considering that Stan got the job Smith wanted, but it nonetheless chafes, according to a receptionist from the office of O’Neal proctologist, who violated a host of ethics rules when she snuck a peak at his chart and called us with the results. Stan is said to be planning his own Merrill reunion for the same night, to be held in the office space the board’s letting him use for the next 3 years. Who will go where? We guess it really comes down to a matter of preference—Smith will have a piñata, Stan will be jumping out of a cake naked and serving Chex Mix^TM. Which one would you attend?

Record bonuses for a good cause (the Keith Richards blood infusion program) From the Huffington Post:

THE ROLLING STONES played an intimate gig for 500 bankers in Spain - and were paid $5.4 million (GBP2.7 million) for their private stage show. The rockers’ two year A Bigger Bang tour is said to be one of the longest and highest grossing ever, having pulled in over $436 million (GBP218 million) to date. But that didn’t stop the musicians supplementing their income with an 80-minute set at a party organised by Deutsche Bank in the Catalan National Art Museum in Barcelona, Spain last week (12Jul07). And frontman Mick Jagger admitted he was delighted to be earning so much from the wealthy bankers. He told the crowd, “Thank you for having us. The best part is, it’s coming out of your bonuses.”

I guess someone had to clean up after the band, and bankers, after the set (and by this we mean all the underwear DB bankers threw on stage). Beautiful economic gears in motion…

Rolling Stones Play Private Deutsche Bank Gig, Paid $67,500 A Minute [Huffington Post]

If you happened to skip out on the Schwarzman party before his 30-minute self-tribute, before the hired orchestra did the Zeppelin cover, or before party favors were handed out, the Schwarzintor has a pocket full o’ reckoning to issue your lowly $5 per crab-claw eating self. After all, what is there left to live for after attending Schwarzman’s 60th Birthday Party to End All Parties (La Fiesta Terminal)?

This was the reasoning of party planner Philip Baloun, who passed on 6/28, shortly after losing all sense of purpose in the grim spectre of Schwarmapalooza. New York Social Diary commemorates Baloun’s passing by adding him to “The List.”

Baloun, pictured here with a girl wearing a purple tablecloth, ninja Martha Stewart and fashion designer Edna Mode from the Incredibles, was the go-to submissive when it came to Wall Street ragers.

Some background – Baloun started out as a high school English teacher and completely freaked out when he turned 30 (in 1976). He ditched his students (right in the middle of the Heart of Darkness unit), “changed his life,” and moved to New York to become a theatrical director (translation – out of the closet, with a punctuation mark). A short three years later, Baloun started his own design firm in New York and the rest, as they say, is inanity history.

According to New York Social Diary, Baloun “became a pioneer in combining forestry, interior design, lighting, exfoliates, carpenters, pipe cleaners, painters, early Bowie LPs, seamstresses, livestock, epidermis and funnel cake into transforming an ordinary room into a palatial confection.”

Baloun’s catalogue of notable ragers included George Soros’ Millennium Party, Saul Steinberg’s $1mm 50th Birthday Bash, a Sandy Weill Sock Hop, a Richard Lefrak C’est Chic Fete, an Alfred Taubman Date Auction, a Steve Cohen Bris and an Evening with Journey featuring Jamie Dimon.

Baloun was not a stranger to his own “artistry,” frequently decorating his own residences (notice the plural). For instance, Baloun acted as contractor, landscape designer, hedge trimmer, decorator and freshly manscaped lawn boy for his own East Hampton house.

Philip Baloun, dead at 61. R.I.P.

Old Rich People Are Productive Normal Members of Society [New York Social Diary’s “The List”]

On the eve of the company he co-founded with Stephen Schwarzman going public in the sixth largest IPO in US history, Pete Peterson threw a party for his daughter Holly at the Four Seasons. The party, ostensibly to celebrate the publication of Holly’s debut novel The Manny, attracted a host of notable guests from the world of finance and media. It was a lavish affair in the grill room of the Four Seasons, defying expectations that Blackstone’s founders would be shying away from public exhibitions of their wealth after recent attention on Schwarzman’s wealth seemed to provoke a public backlash.

Our invitation must have been sent to the wrong address because we’re pretty sure Pete and Holly wouldn’t have neglected to invite DealBreaker. After all, they had invited riff-raff from New York magazine and “Page Six.” So we crashed the party. And promptly got tossed out into a raging storm.

We’ll forgive the Petersons because they have far more money than we do. Besides, being outside gave us the chance to pall around with CNBC’s Bertha Coombs and her team, and snap some pictures of the arriving guests. And eventually Holly stopped by to speak with us. She mentioned that she was proud of her father and that she thought that video for the Manny was “very funny.” But we wanted to know the answer to the most important question: was the publication of her book and the scheduling of this party the reason the Blackstone IPO was moved up an entire week.

“That’s just a coincidence,” Holly said.

A long time after all the important guests arrived, the party crash team from Gawker showed up, dressed in costumes that were part Eastern European goth and part Williamsburg drunktard. They tried to sneak into the party. No dice. Security and the PR girls blocked them like a third-rate Jersey City hedge fund trying to buy into the BX IPO. Instead, they hung around in the rain with us, chatting up the wealthiest cougars they could find.

[After the jump we bring you a slide show of Scott Bressler’s photos from the Peterson party.]

More coverage of the events from around the internet:

Crashing The ‘Manny’ Book Party [Gawker]
Liz Smith Gets Grabby at ‘Manny’ Celebration [New York Magazine]

[Photo: Lauren Lancaster, Veras]

Tell us and we’ll get you wet. Details:

Ever wondered what it would be like to party with a bunch of hedgies? Besides the obvious—Loeb is a mean drunk,* Hudson claims he has no idea why he woke up wearing a skirt and heels,* Griffin is always suspiciously missing when it’s his turn to pick up the round*—there’s not that much in the public records about what doing lines off of a HF manger’s girlfriend’s girlfriend’s exquisitely sculpted (and handsomely paid for) breasts feels like (Stevie Cohen owns the rights to publish those photographs).**

Until now!

Thanks to hedge fund manager Saleem Siddiqi, who threw a soiree for his HF friends (in the name of charity) we’ve now got a hazy picture of what a bitchin’ time we’re scheduled to have with James Simons next Thursday (quant guys always have the best acid). Let’s take a look.

*Libel lawyers please note : We’re kidding around here. Obviously we’ve never actually seen Loeb drunk, Hudson in drag and, for all we know, Griffin might totally be generous when it comes to buying shots for the table.

**Yeah, sorry, we also made up that thing about Cohen. The guy has lots of pictures but we don’t really think he owns the rights to those ones.

This past Saturday, a party was thrown to celebrate Leveraged Sell-Out’s book deal. While we’re eagerly looking forward to the book, not one member of the regular DealBreaker team made it to the party. But a DealBreaker has spies everywhere and this afternoon we debriefed the pretty blond girl with the cute Southern accent who we sent to represent our team.

DealBreaker: What was that LSO party like?
SouthernBelle: sort of a weird crowd
SouthernBelle: not many peeps i knew and young.
i also remember the following: enrique iglesias was playing
SouthernBelle: and someone actually name-dropped [Gawker media boss] lockhart steele
DealBreaker: Why did you agree to go the party?
SouthernBelle: I was wooed with the promise of free drinks
SouthernBelle: plus I liked my outfit too much to call it a night
DealBreaker: What was the highlight of the party?
SouthernBelle: that it was a party for a hipster, faux-banker populated by actual bankers pretending to be hipsters…mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the faux-est of them all…
SouthernBelle: From the cheering it seems like most people’s highlight was when Don’t Turn Out the Lights came on
DealBreaker: What as the lowlight?
SouthernBelle: lowlight: no soda to mix my vodka with
SouthernBelle: oh, and the point where a girl accused me of sleeping with you to get ahead in the blogger world. if i’m going to social climb through beds, it certainly won’t be through blogger beds
SouthernBelle: also the influx of the guys in ties with awful pick up lines and girls who looked like they came straight from jersey
SouthernBelle: that’s when i left
DealBreaker: Thanks. I guess that’s where we’ll leave off as well.

(This is ‘New York’ mag’s pic; we’d never be so gauche as to suggest that this is
where you go to grab ass. If you’re looking for that kind of thing, try New Jersey)

Have you been itching to nail a Wall Streeter but are unsure of where to get the job done, short of stopping by 277 Park on the way home tonight? (Let’s be honest—85 Broad too far out of everyone’s way to f*** a dude who’ll who will kick you out just prior to the culmination so he can finish to the sound of Jim Cramer’s voice). Lucky for us—er, you, New York magazine’s annual Best of New York issue is out and, in addition to naming the best place in the city for PB&J, an “alternative briefcase,” and a one-night-stand, they’ve singled out Fizz on East 55th as the “Best Place to Meet A Wall Street Guy.” Previously a members only club, the stop between Marquee and UES apartments now only requires an annual fee of $1,000 from half its members, many of whom are “Masters of the Universe from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers…hoping to clean up in the singles market.” Since we’ve never been to the ‘izz, preferring to pick up our Wall Streeters at Joshua Tree and occasionally Dorian’s, we checked in with former JP Morgan analyst/Mergers and Acquisitions auteur, Dana Vachon, who we felt confident could speak on the matter just as eloquently and informatively as he did RE: the Weill/Prince tête-à-tête.

DB: can I get your thoughts re: http://nymag.com/bestofny/nightlife/2006/golddiggerbar/?
DV:It’s like Au Bar on drugs, which is to say it is just like Au Bar.
DV: On most nights it’s totally empty
DV: On good nights, generally after benefits, it resembles a tweaked-out Sultan’s caravan
DV: minus the virgins
DV: Fizz is rather like Lichtenstein; a place you pass through, but not a destination in its own right
DV: And if you think that Ivana Trump is writing thousand dollar checks for her membership, then you must live in Lichtenstein
DV: because I have lots of far less glamorous friends who are members and not one of them pays a dime
DB: interesting, interesting. What else?
DV: well Ivana just got a boob job
DV: Did it have anything to do with fizz?
DV: I don’t know
DV: But it had a lot to do with gravity, that is for sure
DV: and as this place is in a basement, perhaps the gravity is a touch stronger, eh?
DV: So is Fizz responsible for Ivanka’s boob job?
DV: I think the readers ought to decide.

Best Place to Meet a Wall Street Guy [NYM]

(And don’t feel bad about invitees already calling tonight’s bash The Poor Man’s Schwarzman. He might’ve had jumbo sized shrimp puffs and an ice sculpture of Dick Parsons, but jumbo sized shrimp puffs and an ice sculpture of Dick Parsons aren’t John Carney serenading you with “Happy Birthday, Mr. (Activist) Investor,” now are they?)

For those of you who are unlucky enough to not still be drunk from the big Schwarzman bash last night, either because you’re now hung-over (take a page from Jamie Dimon’s playbook and have a few of whatever you were throwing back last night, which in JD’s case, would be some Fuzzy Navels) or because you weren’t there in the first place, take comfort—we’re about to soothe your woes with a little rundown of the big event, as compiled by notes from DealBook, the Post, and the tiny camera Melania Trump agreed to wear between her cleavage for the better half of the night (but only after we promised to tell you “This footage was brought to you by Trump, All Rights Reserved”).