The Manhattan Institute is one think tank whose scholars and benefactors dress up well. At the institute’s annual Alexander Hamilton Awards Dinner, 500 guests donned crisply pressed tuxedos and conservative black cocktail dresses befitting the setting: Cipriani 42nd Street, a grand space with 65-foot ceilings that was built in 1923 as the Bowery Savings Bank.

It was quite the appropriate setting to pay tribute Thursday night to Alexander Hamilton’s contribution to America’s financial system, as well as to honor three men – a statesman, a biographer, and a businessman – who have made their mark in our time.

The first to accept the Alexander Hamilton Award was the statesman, Governor Hugh Carey. “This is an unrivaled and undeserved honor,” he said. He broke up the solemnity of the occasion, however, with his next remark, about the respect the crowd held for politicians: “I’m a condiment. I’m coming between the appetizer and the main course.”

Moments later, Mr. Carey introduced another term to describe himself: a versatile visionary who found solutions no matter what the problem. The way he led New York out of bankruptcy is just one example.

“I had no intention of learning the Albany game. That’s what put us in this difficulty we were in,” he said of his mind-set when he became governor in 1975.

Being a visionary can get you out of trouble, but it also brings trouble. Mr. Carey illustrated the point by telling the story of Irish potato farmers on Long Island whose crops were inedible. At Mr. Carey’s request, Cornell researchers found the soil best for grapes, not potatoes. The potato farmers then made fortunes selling their land. “The only problem was that all the rich Irish potato farmers became Republican and voted against me next term,” Mr. Carey said.

Mr. Carey also cautioned against changing the slogan “I love New York,” coined at a time when “people were scheduling tours to see New York before it went away.” The slogan helped turn things around. “It’s a great slogan,” he said. “No new slogans. People are talking about New York as everybody’s second home. Well, New York is second to no one!”

Mr. Carey got a standing ovation for that sentiment. When the room was quiet again, Mayor Bloomberg showed up to pay his own tribute to Mr. Carey. “The height of his political independence is monumental,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I’m grateful to him for his example, which I’ve tried to carry on.”

The author of the biography “Alexander Hamilton,” Ron Chernow, was the next recipient of the Alexander Hamilton Award. “I know what you’re thinking – this guy had the inside track. And it’s true,” Mr. Chernow said.

Yet Mr. Chernow made a point of distancing himself from his brilliant subject. Hamilton “retained everything he ever read,” the writer said. “In his presence,” he added, “I felt like a lazy, shambling, tongue-tied idiot.” Indeed, for Mr. Chernow, Hamilton was the man who “enabled this fledgling democracy to flourish.”

Before the servers came out with dessert, the vice chairman of Alliance Capital Management, Roger Hertog, accepted the final award. Mr. Hertog, chairman emeritus of the Manhattan Institute and the chairman of The New York Sun, noted with pride that he is a product of New York public schools, including Stuyvesant High School and the City College of New York. To write his speech, he said, he consulted with his “national security adviser,” his wife, Susan. Her advice: “Roger, don’t be so humble.”

The event raised more than $1 million for the institute’s activities, which include financing scholars, known as fellows; holding events around the country, and publishing a highly regarded quarterly on urban policy, City Journal, edited by Myron Magnet. Among the event’s major contributors were John Dyson, who introduced Governor Carey; Nathan Saint-Amand, and Timothy Dalton.

Many of the institute’s fellows attended the event, including Heather MacDonald, who last week defended the USA Patriot Act in testimony before a House subcommittee; the director of the Center for Legal Policy, James Copland, and a scholar at the Center for Medical Progress, Robert Goldberg.

Also spotted: the chairman of the institute, Dietrich Weismann; economist June O’Neill, a professor at Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business, who served a four-year term as director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Marty and David Hamamoto, who earlier in the day celebrated the Japanese holiday Boy’s Day at their son’s school, St. Bernard’s.

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The Whitney Contemporaries, the Whitney Museum of American Art’s group for art enthusiasts in their 20s and 30s, played host to its third annual Art Party the same night at Splashlight Studios. The parody rock band Rene Risque and the Artlovers performed for nearly 1,000 guests, including Fred Schneider, of the B-52s, and the actress Anna Paquin.

As for the “art chic” dress code called for on the invitation: Lots of the young pretty things went for an older, more glamorous look, with very traditional blowouts and gowns.

One notable exception: Lauren Davis, who almost always sports a fabulous gown (last Monday at the Costume Institute Ball it was a Chanel; soon it will be a Carolina Herrera, since she’s just accepted a job with the Venezuelan designer), showed her casual side in a roomy T-shirt bloused over jeans – definitely “art chic.”