When the host of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart, presented his correspondent Stephen Colbert with an award, an 8-pound crystal cube, at the Symphony Space gala Monday night, Mr. Colbert said: “Look at that: They’d never expect that as a murder weapon.”

The awards ceremony at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers proceeded in quintessential Symphony Space fashion, turning the predictable and mundane into a humor-filled, creative experience.

Unsurprisingly, the greatest flourish came from the cultural center’s artistic director, Isaiah Sheffer, who wrote a parody song titled “The Zabar Mystique” in tribute to two of the other award recipients, the brothers Saul and Stanley Zabar. The song, performed by Liz Callaway, told the story of a chance romantic encounter in the famed food emporium of the Upper West Side, about 20 blocks south of Symphony Space. A few stanzas:

I met him in Zabar’s / On the Upper West Side
He was a gentile, / I tried to show my best side
“Nix on the belly-lox, friend, / It’s too salty,”
I said Try the Nova instead” / I’d made a friend … in Zabar’s

We wandered away / To the duck cassoulet
And held hands by the time / We reached freeze-dried quinces
Till finally we kissed, / Under the blintzes.

The Zabar’s Mystique / Was warming our chevre
My kippered heart would love / This whitefish for-evre.

The Zabars weren’t the only guests to have a song performed in their honor. Suzanne Vega performed “The Eerie Canal” for her friend Dan Zanes, the children’s music innovator who performs in Symphony Space’s Saturday morning series of family programs. Others honored were the Scherman Foundation, which has supported Symphony Space for 23 years; Lily Pu and Marcia Santoni of Ogilvy & Mather, who designed Symphony Space’s new advertising campaign, and the actor Alec Baldwin, who has performed in the signature Symphony Space program “Selected Shorts,” not only at Symphony Space but on tour.

Mr. Baldwin won the loudest laughs with his analysis of the appetizer served by Abigail Kirsch, called a “beet tower” on printed menus at the dinner tables.

“This is my fifth beet tower this week,” he said. “It’s April in New York, which means I wish I were in the beet business. I’d never have to act again if I were in the beet business.”

The fancy name of the dish reminded him of ones his mother used to make, such as “balogna and Velveeta roulade” and “Spam confit.”

And then Mr. Baldwin got serious on the subject of Symphony Space. “It’s one of those things that’s really unique to New York,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Once you get there, you can only get there.”

Mr. Baldwin also recalled his encounter with the New Yorker writer Roger Angell, right before he was to read one of Mr. Angell’s baseball stories.

“Just say the words, don’t put a lot of crap on it,” Mr. Angell told him.

After the official proceedings, Mr. Zanes gave copies of his CDs to his fellow honorees, while Mr. Colbert speculated on what he would do with his crystal cube.

“I’m going to hang it by a thread, over my head at the dinner table,” he said.

The not-just-from-the-Upper-West-Side crowd, including the chairmen, Patsy Glazer and Richard Mittenthal, helped raise $260,000 for Symphony Space.