Nightlife
N.Y.’s Infamous Limelight’s Transition to Shopping Mall Complete by Steve Weinstein
EDGE Editor-In-ChiefMonday Nov 23, 2009 As soon as the Limelight opened its doors in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood in 1983, the club became immediately notorious. Formerly an Episcopalian church, the opening night in the deconsecrated sanctuary featured a naked woman wheeled hanging upside down on a cross, provoking the rage of the liberal (and, according to his daughter’s biography, gay) bishop of New York at the time, Paul Moore.
The club’s reputation only went downhill (or up, depending on your perspective) from there. It became the central club for the 1980s phenomenon of "club kids." Led by the increasingly outrageous (and high) Michael Alig, nights at the club made pointed fun of any sacred, from the Holocaust to slavery in the South.
The mastermind behind the club was a handsome, charismatic Toronto native named Peter Gatien. With an eye patch from the hockey accident that gave him his seed money to start his first club in Canada, Gatien cut a dashing figure.
He enlisted the club kids, while Mark Berkeley became his gay promoter. Berkeley also oversaw gay nights at the two other major clubs Gatien owned, the Tunnel in far West Chelsea and Club U.S.A. in Midtown. But he began with the Limelight, where he took the side chapel area, named it "The Chapel," and filled it with go-go boys, a separate DJ and dance area, and lots of dark cruising areas.
The club kids ruled the main room, until it all came crashing down. Alig spiraled from Special K to much harder drugs, including heroin. He killed a fellow club kid named Angel Melendez, purportedly over a drug deal. The case is related in another club kid’s book, James St. James’ "Disco Bloodbath," as well as a documentary film and a fictional one starring Macauley Culkin and Seth Green.
That was only the beginning of Gatien’s troubles with the Limelight. A zealous federal prosecutor named Rudolph Giuliani had been obsessing about busting Gatien for personal drug use. According to Frank Owens’ book "Clubland," there were telescopes trained on Gatien’s office, and arrested drug dealers were shaken down for information.
Finally, the feds closed in. Prosecutors alleged Gatien not only allowed drug dealers to ply their trade in the club, they alleged he was in on the take. The charges never stuck, but the consequent legal bills made Gatien sell the club.
A group of investors headquartered in Boston bought it and named it Avalon. But the club never recaptured its former magic. A voluble group of local residents also pressured New York’s State Liquor Authority and the city’s police to look at the club’s every move.
Eventually, the club was sold to a developer, Jack Menasche, who has finally revealed plans for the space.
As suspected, the club will become a mall, with the sanctuary hosting a "Festival of Shops" with "brimming with must-have treasures." The upper levels will be more shops, a gourmet marketplace, pharmacy, sneaker gallery and home-furnishing arcade.
So ends the place where Prince was a nightly visitor and where Cher famously spotted Rob Camilletti, then 22 and a bagel baker from Queens, about whom she reported quipped, "I want him. Have him washed, oiled and sent to my tent."
EDGE Editor-in-Chief Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early ’80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
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