From the other side of the curtain, comes the usual hubbub of the post-work drinks crowd, but here a respectful hush has descended.
Food and drinks crowd the scene, characters sit in close conversation or solitary contemplation, while things like smoke and coffee and tabletop woodgrain mimic the hour's whirl of confusion and passion.
At times, the desire to drink crowded out all other notions.
One such older gentleman, closer to 90 than 40, told me, "Hey, you've got a pretty mouth!" After a few drinks, the crowd shuffled into the dining hall and began decorating the chandeliers with beads and boas, as is tradition.
After an hour (and who knows how many drinks), the crowd had pretty much shaken off the grim sight of the tarp and the horses who would be running in the main event, the Belmont Stakes, made their way out of the paddock tunnel while the audience sang Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York".
He also had a paper route, and on election nights sold soft drinks to crowds that gathered to read the results on a sheet draped from the second floor of City Hall.
Buying drinks for a crowd at another hotel bar at 1 a.m., he buttonholed the Italian publisher Roberto Calasso on Mr. Flanagan's behalf.
The clean-cut crowd drinks $13 martinis while nibbling on Mediterranean-style tapas like grilled lamb chops ($7.95) and stuffed mussels ($7.95).
But a hipper local crowd drinks nearby at Aqua, a bar and restaurant complex high in an office building (1 Peking Road; 852-3427-2288 852-3427-2288 852-3427-2288
A few blocks away, a similar crowd drinks mojitos (15 pesos) at Klub Killer (Castro Barros 809; 54-11-4932-9261; www.klubkiller.com.ar), a dark, bordello-red bar wedged inside an old home.
"And where, ladies and gentlemen, where would we be without poetry?" one windbag asks, as the crowd drinks, flirts and networks.
