Everyone came to Elaine's. And that's hardly an exaggeration. A Manhattan Upper East Side institution helmed by a chain-smoking owner who wasn't afraid to toss men twice her size just because she didn't like them, Elaine's was the go-to spot for generations of celebrities and media types—and was the place to be on Oscar night in New York City. Elaine Kaufman died in December 2010; earlier this week, it was announced that her beloved restaurant would follow.

It was only a year ago that mini blog mogul Dan Abrams and Men's Health editor and serial plagiarist Dave Zinczenko signed on as investors in The Lion, a new downtown Manhattan "hot spot" that aspired to be the next Waverly Inn: a place where media people and minor celebrities go to hang out, and brag about it the next day. How's that going?

Elaine Kaufman, proprietress of the famed writers' haunt Elaine's, has died at 81 years of age.

You know how every year, some magazine sends someone to infiltrate the Bohemian Grove, the secretive annual toga party for rich old WASPs? They decided to make it easy on everyone by meeting up at Elaine's this weekend.

If Gay Talese had a blog, he'd be all about promoting Last Call at Elaine's, Brian McDonald's memoir of bartending at the legendary old-school New York intellectual hang-out. Elaine's was to the '60s and '70s what the Magician was to three years ago. That means that McDonald is as connected to old-school media types as you can get without a masthead position at the New York Review of Books. So even though this book appears to be an account of an era only a few dozen people could care about it, it's the right few dozen people. Brian McDonald is Sloane Crosley for The Olds. At a reading last week on the Upper East Side, the book sold out, presumably to its entire audience.

Food blogger Jay McInerney reports a welcome change at uptown writer pit Elaine's:

We'd be remiss if we let the day go by without noting this: Harper's editor Lewis Lapham testified in fugitive director Roman Polanski's London libel trial against Vanity Fair yesterday, recounting under oath the anecdote at the center of the suit. The article in question was about Elaine's restaurant, on the Upper East Side, and it repeated Lapham's account of an August 1969 evening there that involved himself, Polanski, and a Scandinavian model Beatte Telle.