People have been lamenting the death of nightlife in New York for 30 years—it's pretty much a citywide pastime. Well, with the reelection of our anti-fun mayor, maybe we should just be happy that bars are still open till four in the morning. And maybe we should also be happy that New York is still filled with wonderful nightlife, as we hope you'll see with the following award winners. Let's just appreciate what we have, while we have it.

Best DJ: DJ Jess

Best Glam-Rock Night: Glamdammit

Best Rooftop: The Delancey

Most Thriving Scene: Bushwick

Best All-around Everything Spot: Santos Party House

Best Mix of Nightlife and Fashion: Dances of Vice

Best Fashion Trend: Leggings with boots

Best Underground Party: Rubulad

Best Rock 'N' Roll DJ: Twig the Wonderkid

Best New Party: Discovery

Most Attractive Bartender: Brock Michael Napoli

Best Post-Breakup Night Out Spot: Lit Lounge

Best Party: TRASH!

Best Mix of Nightlife and Art: Lit Lounge

Newcomer of the Year: Aaron Kolfage

Best Nightlife Photographer: Nicky Digital

Best Gay Night: Vandam

"My Significant Other Is Out of Town" Spot: Lit Lounge

Best Gay Club: The Cock

Best Night To Go Out: Thursday

Best Bar Staff: Don Hill's

Most Dangerous In-Venue Staircase: Lit Lounge

Nightlife Icon: Michael T

Best Door Staff: Matt Kepler at Lit Lounge

Best Go-Go Dancer: Amber Star

Best DJ: DJ Jess
Last year's best DJ is a triple-threat of nightlife talents: not only is he a DJ, he's also a singer and nightlife photographer. In addition to that, he looks very good in white jeans. His hairstyle? You saw it on Morrissey. His setlist? You heard it at a Smiths show in the 1980s. You can see him Thursdays at Lit, Fridays in the Studio at Webster Hall and all over, otherwise.

Honorable Mention: VDRK

Best Glam-Rock Night: Glamdammit
In a fairly stagnant nightlife climate, awards seem at worst a circle jerk and at best have the "you have the potential, now do it" tone of Barack Obama's Nobel Prize win, so we look both forward and back at Twig the Wonderkid's space-aged throwback.

Honorable Mention: Bowie Ball

Best Rooftop: The Delancey
Reminding us of the Leonard Cohen lyric, "New York is cold, but I like where I'm living/There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening," The Delancey's spacious roof has a view of the stars and a bit of marine life right in the heart of the LES. It's a perfect fresh-air spot for breaks away from their basement live shows or packed main floor.

Honorable Mention: Hustler Club

Most Thriving Scene: Bushwick
We've heard this scene described as "Bushwick artfuckers," "Morgan and Halsey off the L," and "The new younger generation of performance artists based around Bushwick/Ridgewood." We get it. To be invited to live in the McKibben Lofts, bedbugs and all, is like being invited into the Chelsea Hotel of Brooklyn.

Best All-around Everything Spot: Santos Party House
The staying power to be voted best venue two years running, in a scene that turns over an address like 246 W. 14th St. so often, is to be praised. Everything about this place is staggering: from its proximity to many (underground) trains to its (underground) dance floor and in-club food to its creatively shaped and astoundingly designed (both light and sound) main floor that reminds us of the inside of an LL Cool J-style boom box—even the aesthetic of the Santos Party House bartenders is great. On a single night you can dance to a live set from Moby and see Chin Chin, Alicia Hall Moran, Clarissa Sinceno, Wynne Bennett and George Lewis Jr perform; all while Bill T Jones dances/moves through the crowd.

Best Mix of Nightlife and Fashion: Dances of Vice
Never mind Fashion's Night Out. When it comes to fashion and nightlife, nothing comes close to Shien Lee's Dances of Vice. Terrifically captured by Don Spiro, this is a party that does not take Halloween to get its regulars to work a theme-specific look. Centuries of aesthetics are covered, to the sounds of scratchy records and live, old-fashioned performances. If Tim Burton remade Jack Clayton's Great Gatsby, this is what it would look like.

Honorable Mention: Happy Ending

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Best Fashion Trend: Leggings with boots
Pantslessness came really close here, which is a reward in itself. If you really want to let it all hang out, make a plan to spend New Year's at Don Hill's for Rated X, The Panty Party, where pants-checkers get 2-for-1 drinks. As for leggings and tights, we love them so long as they are not worn as pants, and especially in the cold weather when paired with big, chunky boots.

Honorable Mention: Pantslessness

Best Underground Party: Rubulad
Rubulad is just about the only thing that makes us long for 90s west coast beach raves. As the east coast version, it is in fitting west/east contrast that these are not on beaches but in warehouses. Expect to rub elbows with costumed, sweaty, beautiful lads and lasses while taking in food, DJs, bands, performances, screenings, decorations—somewhere between the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and Happy Hardcore.

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Best Rock 'N' Roll DJ: Twig the Wonderkid
A staple of our stapled magazine's awards, his Disco Down and Glamdammit parties remain nightlife staples. Disco Down (at Happy Ending, last year's award-winner for Best New Party) is more contemporary and DJ-oriented, while Glamdammit (at Don Hill's) features everything from go-go dancers and burlesque performances to live bands.

Honorable Mention: Jonathan Toubin

Best New Party: Discovery
This free-with-RSVP, very-disco monthly party in the basement of Santos Party House with DJs VDRK and Free Magic is hosted by Famous Friends and run by Damon Jablons, Ruth Heronemus and other good friends. Discovery makes its disco-loving clientele feel like space travelers shaking their astronauts back in time: It's the party version of a present-day version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a throwback style and forward-looking thrust.

Honorable Mention: Tonight We Ride

Most Attractive Bartender: Brock Michael Napoli
We feel like we have seen this guy more at after-hours parties than during regular hours, and we've never actually spoken to him—he is always running around the bar, dressed in a convincing and non-annoying blue-collar hipster sort of style. Hot.

Honorable Mention: Any dude at Death & Co.

Best Post-Breakup Night Out Spot: Lit Lounge
Rather than sitting in your dimly lit apartment listening to the Smiths and wishing you were dead, a better idea is to visit the dungeon-like basement (on a Thursday for DJ Jess and Bastard's NC-17 to guarantee dancing to the Smiths) of Lit Lounge. In the basement, the ceiling is about as low as you feel.

Honorable Mention: Happy Ending

Best Party: TRASH!
DJ Jess and Alex Malfunction's formerly itinerant party is at the bottom of Webster Hall's soon-to-be-famous (see pg 20) staircase, but at the top of our list for living up to its name and reputation. TRASH! is filled with go-go dancers, burlesque performances, guest DJs and mayhem.

Best Mix of Nightlife and Art: Lit Lounge
Well duh, the Fuse Gallery is located in the back of Lit Lounge's main floor. Lit Lounge—and Happy Ending as well—comes the closest to 1980s/no wave/Sonic Youth New York: it is still woefully bleak, with a relaxed no-smoking policy and low basement ceilings, and putting art with that is all very much in the spirit of the East Village of yore.

Newcomer of the Year: Aaron Kolfage
Kolfage's Facebook page states: "I am whoever I pretend to be. I am whoever you want me to be." And given all the parties that this DJ and host is involved with, he has become quite a presence in New York. The former Ruff Club (RIP) poster boy caught the end of that party, but it seems pretty clear that soon enough he will be a veteran of the next Ruff Club, whatever that may be.

Honorable Mention: The Minsky Sisters are a devastating pair whose Flapper realness we learned about at Dances of Vice.

Best Nightlife Photographer: Nicky Digital
More impressive even than his photography and insider status is his mustache. NickyDigital.com is basically a nightlife brand at this point, with a useful archive and index and a blog that covers music, fashion, style and nightlife; and we love that he Tweets date-specific "where were you last year"-style updates, which makes egomania far easier than finding oneself in archived photographs on misshapes.com.

Honorable Mention: The Culture of Me

Best Gay Night: Vandam
The Voice called our annual NYC Bands You Need to Hear feature "Best Fledgling Local Rock-Star Cheat-Sheet,"" so it's only fair that we give props to Michael Musto (himself a Nightlife Awards ceremony alum) for his piece about Vandam. Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny's Sunday party is a hotbed for club kids, neo-club kids, and queers (boys and girls) of all ages.

Honorable Mention: Rated X

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"My Significant Other Is Out of Town" Spot: Lit Lounge
This is a more in-progress version of the Post-Breakup Night Out Award, but the same dark corners where there is not a dry eye post-breakup can be corners where there isn't a dry seat. Your alibi when your partner gets back in town and you missed all their calls: there is very little cell reception in the basement of Lit Lounge.

Honorable Mention: The Box

Best Gay Club: The Cock
It is only natural that the best gay club is called The Cock. A long(er than four hours)-standing institution of erections and dysfunction which is constantly being shut down, the only thing that opens and closes more than this venue is...well, there are two things. In a world full of bottoms, this is a top on our list.

Best Night To Go Out: Thursday
With Daylight Savings Time—and being surrounded by sun-blocking and canyon-creating skyscrapers—each day is pretty much constant darkness, so you might as well give up on sunlight. Thursday seems like a more responsible vote than Sunday through Wednesday and the weekends are for amateurs.

Honorable Mention: Tuesday

Best Bar Staff: Don Hill's
Don was the owner of the legendary Cat Club. Co-owner Nicki Camp booked Guns N' Roses into Limelight back in the 1980s. Tara and her full-sleeves are quite missed, and Carlos' mane needs to come in more. The Brothers Bliss (Andrew and Brendan) can make just about everything (but are not going to be happy about your lemondrop) including conversation and smiles, and Nightlife Awards alum Richie barbacks during all of the barebacking. The security staff (Kurt, Nigel, Omar, Reese, Big Shawn) is not going to shoot you, while Mark, Philippe and Ricky are sound engineers who actually know what they're doing in a room that deserves it.

Most Dangerous In-Venue Staircase: Lit Lounge
Lit Lounge's staircase is well-lit (haha), but narrow and steep, which are two of the three factors in a most dangerous staircase nomination, the third being dark. Along with other nominees Webster Hall, Collective Hardware, Home Sweet Home, Sutra, Le Royale, Santos Party House office stairs, we would like to add the stairs in Don Hill's.

Honorable Mention: Webster Hall

Nightlife Icon: Michael T
When you get to be as old as Michael T, you're no longer eligible in any category other than Nightlife Icon, which is our Nightlife Awards' version of the Lifetime Achievement award. While not yet in the condition of Charlie Chaplin when he received his second honorary Academy Award, Michael T is just as spunky (Chaplin had kids into his 70s).

Honorable Mention: Sophia Lamar

Best Door Staff: Matt Kepler at Lit Lounge
Having to deal with the homeless, the drunks and the hipsters (and the Venn Diagram therein) on Second Ave in all sorts of weather cannot be easy, but we don't remember even a moment of unpleasantness from him.

Honorable Mention: Santos Party House

Best Go-Go Dancer: Amber Star
Amber remains beside her stripper-pole-as-throne after winning this award last year. We last saw her a few weeks ago in the Don Hill's cloakroom dancing for Take Back New York (last Thursday of every month) and she was lovely. Leave it to a woman whose panties are filled with dollars to know how to tip a cloakroom attendant...

Honorable Mention: Anna Copa Cabana