“Do you have any special instructions for us?”

That was the question New York City’s buildings commissioner asked one of Mayor Bloomberg’s closest aides in an e-mail that has emerged at the center of a lawsuit pitting two of New York’s most politically connected businessmen against a wealthy fashion photographer.

The commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, sought advice from the first deputy mayor, Patricia Harris: what to do to prevent an angry call to City Hall from the politically connected New Yorkers — in this case Roland Betts or Tom Bernstein.

The e-mails subpoenaed from City Hall do not indicate what response, if any, Ms. Lancaster received. But the emails disclose an interesting facet of public life in New York: When the most powerful New Yorkers want help from the mayor’s office, they don’t call 311.

The e-mail is one of about a dozen that surfaced in a court case against Mr. Betts and his business partner at Chelsea Piers, Mr. Bernstein. The lawsuit against the two men, who are founders of Chelsea Piers, comes from one of their tenants, Federico Pignatelli. Mr. Pignatelli, who owns a fashion photography studio complex on Pier 59, has a long list of complaints with the management. He alleges that Chelsea Piers overcharged him on his electrical bill, that someone in the company was denouncing him as an “Italian gangster,” and that Pier 59 is cracked and decaying.

Mr. Betts is a college classmate and friend of President Bush. Mr. Bernstein was once an owner, along with Mr. Bush, of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

The e-mails outline the course of action that Mr. Bernstein took when he wanted to alert City Hall to an unlicensed nightclub Mr. Pignatelli was operating. He contacted Deputy Mayor Harris by e-mail to say that the nightclub, known as the Deck, was “a very serious fire hazard and public assembly safety concern.”

Mr. Bernstein’s e-mails, which were subpoenaed through the mayor’s office, are straightforward and do not request any special treatment. The e-mails, which date back to June, 2004, inquire which agency would be the correct one to address his concerns about the nightclub.

“If you can get us a contact, we can be quite helpful to the City since we know many of the particulars on a wide range of violations,” Mr. Bernstein wrote in his first e-mail to City Hall, dated June 21, 2004.

In the e-mails, Mr. Bernstein said he intended to get in contact also with Ms. Lancaster, of the Buildings Department, and with the deputy criminal justice coordinator for Mayor Bloomberg.

City Hall said that it responded to the e-mails in an appropriate manner.

“The e-mails only show that Deputy Mayor Harris forwarded them to the people who handle these issues as a routine matter,” a spokesman for the mayor, Stuart Loeser, said. “There was no special treatment.”

Mr. Pignatelli, however has said in the past, that the management of Chelsea Piers was wrong to turn to City Hall for assistance in what he maintains is a private commercial dispute between a tenant and a landlord.

Mr. Bernstein, however, maintains that Mr. Pignatelli’s night club, which drew hundreds, was a public danger.

In an interview, Mr. Bernstein said: “If you sense some urgency, there was urgency here. We felt an urgent concern that an illegal nightclub not turn into a fire trap. And because of that we notified the city.”

The Fire Department, which had already begun inspecting the property before the e-mails, continued to do so throughout the period of Mr. Bernstein’s complaints. On June 24, 2004 the Fire Department issued a long list of violations against Mr. Pignatelli, ordering him to make sure fire extinguishers were accessible, reduce capacity to 75 from about 200 people, and obtain a public assembly permit. The Fire Department issued a vacate order and eventually the club was shut down.

After that occurred, Mr. Bernstein, in December of 2004, wrote, in part, to Deputy Mayor Harris: “You’re the best! DOB got the job done.”

Chelsea Piers and Mr. Pignatelli are scheduled to meet next week for mediation. One Fire Department employee, Joseph Polcha, said in a recent deposition that the department’s actions against Mr. Pignatelli were not justified. Mr. Polcha added that he was so disgusted by the Fire Department’s treatment of Mr. Pignatelli that he has decided to hasten his retirement, according to the deposition.

The judge in the case, Shirley Werner Kornreich, of state Supreme Court in Manhattan, expressed concern that Mr. Bernstein was intimidating another Fire Department witness when Mr. Bernstein contacted the city’s fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta about the veracity of the employee’s testimony, according to an order dated August 18, 2006. That witness acknowledged that his attorney at the deposition had been provided by Mr. Pignatelli.