With four large shamrocks lighting up the facade of Brooklyn Borough Hall, the members of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick burst with pride at their 145th annual banquet Saturday night.

“When the Irish first came here, most of us felt lucky just to be in America. They didn’t care too much whether they were in Brooklyn,” the society’s president, John Ryan, said. “Now, to be in Brooklyn is to be in a new dynamic borough.”

“I feel lucky to live in Brooklyn because we have Prospect Park, the library, the beauty of the Botanic Garden, Mark Morris Dance… and diverse ethnicity,” a guest, Suzy Marquard, said.

Indeed, the Friendly Sons respect diversity: “We are a group of people that feels lucky to be Irish – not to say that other people are unlucky not to be Irish,” the group’s vice president, James Ryan, said.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz delivered a proclamation and asked those gathered to appreciate the newly restored Borough Hall. He noted that this was the first time the hall was open on a Saturday night since he took office.

Many of the Brooklyn society’s members are also members of the Manhattan chapter of the Friendly Sons, but the smaller Brooklyn group, which has 39 members and a cap of 50 members, is a close bunch. For example, while the New York chapter’s dinner generally attracts about 2,000 men, the Brooklyn event “is closer to home, it’s more convivial. It’s more of a neighborhood party. Most of us live near each other and are friends with each other,” James Ryan said.

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To give the artists of “Greater New York” a proper send-off, P.S.1 threw a party on a Circle Line boat Sunday. Most guests had been greeting visitors during a marathon 6-hour opening earlier in the day, so the mood on the Zephyr, docked at South Street Seaport, was mellow.

Having a party on a boat seemed “cool” to Jersey City artist Jason Burch.He described his work as “dealing with our relationship to nature and our desire to control her.”

Brooklyn artist Carol Bove sipped a beer on the bottom deck and talked about her piece in the show – a bookshelf filled with books from the 1960s, framed by a curtain made of 60,000 silver beads.

Nearby, a black-clad waiter/actor served hot dogs from a cart – the primary food served at the party.

“I understand this ship is powered by Sabrett fuel – it’s all in the sauerkraut,” said Douglas Kelly, who is famous for his e-mail compendiums of all the art openings and parties around town.

Becoming more serious, Mr. Kelly gave credit to the museum’s director, Alana Heiss, and extended the ship metaphor: “Alana gets a lot of the credit for keeping it all afloat.”

Artist Adia Millett, who wore jewelry designed by her roommate, reported that one of her pieces, “a cross-stitch swing that is 7 feet tall,” had sold at the opening.

The few gray hairs in the crowd belonged to the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn Lowry, and museum trustees Jerry Speyer and David Teiger.