Mike Bloomberg makes nice with New York Observer's Peter Kaplan

It looks like Mike Bloomberg has gotten over his pique at The New York Observer.

The media mogul-turned mayor recently made headlines by getting snappish with a reporter from the salmon-colored weekly at a press conference. The reporter, Azi Paybarah, had asked Bloomberg a question about his plan to run for a third term; Bloomberg responded by calling Paybarah "a disgrace."

But all is forgiven judging from a glowing paean Bloomberg offered to the Observer's departing editor, Peter Kaplan, who left the paper this month after 15 years atop its masthead. Past and present Observer staffers and other friends convened at Manhattan's Century Club last night, where they received copies of a 24-page tribute issue celebrating Kaplan's tenure. Among the contributors were Bonfire of the Vanities author Tom Wolfe, Harvey Weinstein, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, Sex and the City writer Candace Bushnell -- and Bloomberg, who praised Kaplan for producing "a newspaper as lively, stimulating, and fascinating as New York City itself."