The force behind Buenos Aires' famed Faena Hotel + Universe talks about remaking neighborhoods, working with Philippe Starck and Norman Foster, and how to survive the coming bad times.

Point of Origin: I started in the fashion world, then sold my fashion company Via Vai and took three years off, a sabbatical of sorts, just really spending time at my beach house [in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay], gardening, taking care of the plants, enjoying my free time. Buenos Aires needed a place for people to congregate, a place for local people to meet up with people from the rest of the world. The city was in the midst of a rebirth after a really profound [economic and political] crisis, and I found a part of Buenos Aires that was abandoned completely, that didn’t even exist really. I found it inspiring to be able to invent a neighborhood from scratch. The focal point of the new neighborhood would be this hotel in an old, abandoned grain warehouse. And that was the beginning of the transformation of this entire neighborhood, Puerto Madero.

“I Hate Models” promoter Mory Traore waxes on why his parties have the most runway talent, ditching the police force, turning shit into gold, and how to combat corruption in Africa.

Point of Origin: I’m from Guinea, West Africa. Came to New York as a student and got a criminology degree from John Jay College. Then I was working for New York Department of Investigation for about seven months until I realized it wasn’t something I wanted to do. Basically it was a military organization with hierarchy, orders -- not the kind of place I function well. I didn’t have freedom. I’m really creative and I couldn’t use it, so I took off and went to Eastern Europe and traveled. And I thought, “OK, when I go back to New York what am I gonna do?" I was in Romania on a train at night writing these things down and I said, “From here on any job I do: no stress. What makes me happy? I love to party. I love beautiful girls. I love to travel.”

New York legend Elaine Kaufman of Elaine’s gets inside a writer’s mind, grabs lunch with the New Yorker boys, and throws a bash for a Swedish dance troupe.

Point of Origin: I'm a New Yorker, born and bred. I was a frisky kid, you know? I was always game, always interested, you know, curious. Curiosity, that was it. I didn't like school. I thought it was dumb. Of course, I had a lot of cousins and all that stuff who were teachers and I had older brothers and sisters who were always involved in the literary world. My parents worked and used to drop me off at the library, so I was always brought up around a lot of books, and it fit in, because it was a part my particular character. I couldn't ask for better education. Books. I understood what they were talking about, and I was compassionate. It was more fun at the library than school. It was intelligence -- this person talked about this subject; the other person talked about that, and I put people together who were interested in the same things. Even as a child, I was gregarious, so it was a fit.

Spencer Sweeney, artist and one of the forces behind Santos' Party House, talks community boards, sketchy after-hour clubs, and why he's changing his name to Santa.

Point of Origin: I came to New York about ten years ago from Philadelphia where I was an art student. I started DJing when I moved here at a sketchy after-hours spot on Ridge Street. Looking back, it was a pretty significant place culturally. My first party there was with Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello. The club was basically some guy's apartment, and he got arrested every weekend. I think he had an incarceration fetish. There was this party at Standard Notions on Ludlow, which was a big hangout. Every week you'd have the guys from A.R.E. Weapons, Chloe Sevigny, Ben Cho. That's where we all came together. At the time, DJing was very genre-driven. If you went into a record store, everyone would ask what you spun, and you'd have to be like "Organic Deep House," you know?

Michael Achenbaum of the Hotel Gansevoort puts down The Law, emerges a towering hotel titan, and reveals what’s in the works for Park Ave.

Point of Origin: I grew up on Long Island and went to the University of Michigan. Then I went to NYU for graduate school for a JD and MBA for law business. When I was in school here and in Michigan, I began to concentrate on children's charities. I worked at a Japanese bank and Bear Stearns doing commercial mortgages -- an industry that's just falling apart right now, and the residential component is now affecting the commercial component. I left to go and work with my father in commercial development as he had his own construction company. Prior to my involvement, my father was responsible for developing thousands of apartments and several million square feet of office space. After I joined the company, we decided to take a few projects in a different direction, including high-end hotels, and we ended up picking up the property that would eventually become the Gansevoort.

LA party maestro Jason Scoppa gets down with Prince, protects his guests from Cali’s rabid paparazzi, name-drops his newest venue, then crashes on the couch with a slice.

Point of Origin: My friend and current business partner Alexi Yulish asked me if I wanted to run a door with him to make some extra cash. It was a Rodeo Drive kosher steak house called Prime Grill. At the time we both needed the bread, so I told him to set up a meeting. We took the meeting, and I said, “Why don't you let us throw our own party?” We broke the patio dining furniture down and brought in any lounge furniture we could find. We brought in DJs and photo booths. It ended up being one of the most interesting Saturday nights in town for that summer.

Laugh Legend Caroline Hirsch of the eponymous Caroline's on bringing the funny, luring tourists, and laughing off a recession.

Point of Origin: I was born in Brooklyn and moved to Manhattan when I was, I think, 24 years old and went to City College and FIT, which is how I ended up in retail. I was working at Gimbels, which was going out of business, so as market reps, we were out, too. Because I was collecting unemployment, I had a little time to look around. Then I kind of fell into this business, the business of comedy -- it just happened. Bob Stigley just loved to go to a comedy club called Freddy's on 49th Street, and before long, he and a couple of other friends wanted to open a cabaret. Bob decided to use a woman's name for the cabaret we planned to open in Chelsea, and that was the start of Caroline's.

He's literally run the gamut from shirtless busboy at Studio 54 (identified in Anthony Haden-Guest's book on the disco as "Pecker 54") to white-tie hotelier to the stars. Richie Notar is a hometown boy made good.

Point of Origin: I was born in Jamaica, Queens. I used to play ball on the Trumps' lawn, and now I know all of them socially. When I was about 15, the owners of Studio 54 -- Ian Schraeger and Steve Rubell -- had a place called Enchanted Garden in Queens, their foray into the club business ... a little-known fact. They wanted to upgrade from guidos to celebrities. A friend asked if I wanted to hang out there with him for, like, $2 an hour, so we were washing dishes! This little guy comes in and says, “What are you doing?” and I said “I'm washing dishes.” And he said, “I like your style, so you should come out and meet the people.” It was Steve Rubell.

Drew Nieporent of Nobu, Tribeca Grill, Montrachet, and countless other iconic endeavors gives us a glimpse inside as he conquers the known world.

Point of Origin: I was born and bred in New York City, an original New Yorker. I went to Stuyvesant High School, then known as Sty Hi, before going to Cornell Hotel School in Ithaca, NY, pretty much my first time away from home, not counting sleepaway camp.

Occupations: After I graduated, I was the chef de rang (a.k.a. foodie honcho) aboard the Sagafjord and Vistafjord cruise ships, then worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in Manhattan -- La Grenouille and Le Perigord -- and was the captain (in a tux!) at La Reserve, before the Plaza Athénée's Le Regence French restaurant between 83rd and 85th streets. We earned three stars from the New York Times only seven weeks after we opened -- a little like winning the lottery in those days.

Freeman's and Rusty Knot co-owner Taavo Somer talks about his failed busboy career, the proper use of porno paneling, and why he strives for simplicity when doing three jobs at once.

Point of Origin: I moved here when I was 27, for a job at Steven Holl Architects. And my first day was an immediate wake-up call that it wasn't gonna work out. I had been working in big firms for years, and this was my dream job. And when that disillusionment came, I thought: screw architecture. I'll do something else. A friend there knew Serge Becker. I thought I'd be a busboy, learn to tend bar. When I met him, he was like, "Why do you want to work in a bar? I have no busboy openings but I have a project." It turned out to be Lever House, which he was working on with John McDonald, and the designer Marc Newson. Serge didn't have a trained architect in his office, so he said, "Do this until a busboy position opens up!"