To walk through the doors of the Gershwin Hotel last Thursday night was to step across a threshold of time and re-emerge in a spooky simulacrum of Andy Warhols Factory, circa 1966. There, amidst the Rococo furnishings, multicolored lighting, pulsing electro beats, and maelstrom of over-excited theatrical types, mingled a troupe of former Warhol "superstars" all converging on a small atrium to celebrate what would have been the 81st birthday of their former mentor (and in many cases, tormentor).

Earlier in the evening, a brand-new VH1 documentary, Lords of The Revolution, focusing on the artist’s mid-'60s heyday, premiered at the Paley Center for Media. It was followed by a panel discussion during which Factory alumni like Billy Name-Linich, Danny Fields, and Bibbe Hansen, the mother of pop rocker Beck, among others, affably discussed Warhol’s ongoing influence and seemingly inexhaustible allure.

Meanwhile, the post-screening Midsummer Madness Party over at the Gershwin on East 27th saw the hotel's ground floor transformed for a night into a 2009 take on the Silver Factory (as those who frequented the original Factory, which was decorated in silver paint and aluminum foil — an idea Warhol adopted from Name-Linich — used to call it). Music was provided by electro-boy duo Whore’s Mascara (think Suicide, but much more fun); a naked girl lay across a chaise lounge, being painted with appliqué diamantes and acrylic paint; and everyone took pictures of everyone else’s outré outfits. Superstars mingled with guests including actor Brandon Ruckdashel, curator Koan Jeff Baysa, astrologer Shelley von Strunckel, and Randy Jones of the Village People.

The colorful collection of decadents present also included a frail-looking Taylor Mead, Ivy Nicholson, Penny Arcade, Leee Black Childers, Allen Midgette, and the night’s star attraction, the "Godfather of the Gershwin Hotel," Billy Name-Linich, massively resplendent on a small couch in the hotel lobby, surrounded by wide-eyed honeys of a certain age. "He still gets groupies," whispered organizer Kymara Lonergan, as she led me across the hall for an audience with the man credited with creating and virtually managing the madness of the Silver Factory during the mid-'60s.

“It goes on and on,” cackled Name-Linich. “It’s like a Buddhist wheel — Andy started this, and it just goes on and on. And now, young people say, 'Oh, I love Andy Warhol,' and they can’t necessarily say anything about his artworks, but they love what he did, his audacity.”

“There’s many different types here,” said Lonergan, clad in a leopard-skin-print wrap and shades. “One of the very telling things at the panel discussion is that the superstars do all love each other, even if they do sometimes have their, uh, moments. They are so amazingly gifted, they are very au courant, they have evolved and are very much a part of the modern art scene, most of them. They don’t live in the past."