HAD a little too much New Year's Eve? Well, no matter how much egg you've nogged or how many corks you've popped, there's no hangover you wouldn't set aside to attend one of the great parties of the last century -- the Beaux-Arts Ball of Jan. 23, 1931. The skyscraper architects who ran it also suffered a stupendous hangover -- but for them it was the Great Depression.

Founded in 1894, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects attracted the well-to-do and cultured of the profession, many of whom had studied at the famous École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After the turn of the 20th century, they took over an old stable on 75th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, and in 1914 they gave a ball with costumes and décor on the theme "Venice Through the Ages."

The combination of social position (or aspiration) of the architect members and the spectacular costumes and decorations made this first ball, and the ones that followed, popular events for both the architectural profession and high society. In 1928, the theme was North Africa; in 1929, a Napoleonic pageant; in 1930, a Renaissance spectacle.

But in 1931 the theme looked not back but forward: "Fête Moderne -- a Fantasie in Flame and Silver" was to recognize the dawning of a new age of architecture and, coincidentally, the new age of financial gloom.