This Saturday as a Nor'easter loosed its silken lashes onto the window panes of sodden New Yorkers, a rowdy crowd of hipsters gathered in a vacant building in Chinatown to relive the heady frisson of the early aughts. Apparently, the building—196 Grand St.—is slated for demolition and condofication. A text message shot through the night saying, "carnage party at midnight." By the appointed hour, destruction and irony commingled in the air around the three-story walkup on Grand between Mott and Mulberry. According to an attendee, "An endless stream of hipsters with forty ounces of St. Ives St. Ides" began to filter in. Soon the place was packed. Lampshades were worn on heads (see photographic evidence). Neckface was there. And then, chaos.

Our man on the ground reports: "Around one o'clock, I was in the bathroom, and someone decided to destroy the sink. People got the idea that that looked fun. I saw an old school telephone crash through the window." The revelers tried to kick down the drywall but the plaster proved no match for their underdeveloped quads and Vans. The walls were dented but remained intact. At some point, it was decided it would be a good idea to try to kick through a gas main. Realizing this could only end in a ball of flames, our correspondent fled the scene. Through ineptitude, prudence or, more likely, loss of interest, the gas main remained intact. In the early morning hours, after the party ended, four men were arrested as they were moving out the sound system. In the crepuscular dawn, as rain drops fell like streams of Swarovski crystal, a soggy and battered 196 Grand nursed its hipster-inflicted wounds and awaited the final goodbye.