SHOPPING ‘CLUB’
By BRADEN KEIL
December 19, 2006 — The former Episcopal church that once housed the sacrilegious Limelight nightclub will be born again—as a retail mini-mall.
Now known as the Avalon nightclub, the legendary 12,000-square-foot venue on Sixth Avenue at West 20th Street will shutter its doors in early 2007.
“The landlord has decided that he doesn’t want to go forward with another nightclub,” said broker Frank Terzulli, of Winnick Realty Group.
“He’s going to cut it up for retail tenants and a restaurant with patio seating.”
Terzulli added, “The area is becoming more upscale with high-priced condos and stores, and that will make it more difficult to get permits from the community board” for a nightclub.
Cops have been cracking down on Chelsea nightclubs and their rowdy and sometimes violent patrons since the murder last summer of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore, who was killed after a night of drinking at the Guest House nightspot.
Officials have warned club owners that they will conduct more stings on underage drinking and insist that the clubs do more to police themselves.
Community leaders have also complained about Chelsea’s club-filled districts, which have been blasted as a “teenage wasteland.”
Landlord Ben Ashkenazy’s company, Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., owns and operates several retail malls and the three flagship Barneys stores in New York, Chicago and Beverly Hills.
Sources say international discount-clothing retailer H&M is the likely main tenant for the space, which features triple-height ceilings and mezzanine levels.
A representative for Winnick would not confirm any specific names, since no leases have yet been signed.
Limelight, founded in the deconsecrated church in 1983, hosted some of clubland’s wildest parties in the ’80s and early ’90s under now-deported club king Peter Gatien.
In 1996, federal agents charged that Limelight was a “drug supermarket” and shut it down.
Gatien was acquitted of racketeering and drug charges but convicted of tax evasion. He spent time in jail and was eventually deported to his native Canada.
That same year, one of the club’s flamboyant promoters, Michael Alig, pleaded guilty to manslaughter for killing Angel Melendez, a club regular and reputed drug dealer over a money dispute. He’s still in jail.
Limelight reopened under new management but was shuttered again in 2002.
It came back to life in November of that year as the short-lived Estate. Avalon followed a few months later.
awesome
I wonder if the B&T traffic will still come out for H&M? SAD DAY HURT CRY.
it would be nice if they could still have a small drug supermarket there—maybe just a drug deli or something.
A small part of my youth just died.
::pat::
i can’t work up any emotion over this. what ISN’T a mini-mall in nyc these days?
i love those chinese mini-malls under the manhattan bridge—the dim sum place upstairs in the older one is good.
the mini mall will be haunted by the ghosts of dead ravers
rhythmic whistling and the spooky sucking of pacifiers heard by late nite passers-by.
H&M will discover platforms attached to their shoes and bellbottoms sewn into jeans overnight
sommeliers in fancy restaurant open bottle after bottle of wine to find them all full of... ORANGE JUICE!
glow stick in hot dog bun
It was wall to wall goffs in my day. You could tell who used good white face powder and who used talcum powder by whether they glowed blue under the blacklights.
Oh, underage drug experiences... I almost feel nostalgic. I still have, somewhere, a *members* card. How hilarious is that? Fake ID and a members card, ah, put off or put on youth hurts and then it’s gone.
house muzak pumping through the speakers
crystal meth in salt shaker
Only time I was ever in the joint was to see Shonen Knife. (just like I would go to Danceteria ... to see Violent Femmes.)
The place with the Killer Club Kidz was The Tunnel. I never went there. I was scared of it.
Ha ha, I saw Primal Scream (I think on the Screamadelica tour) at Limelight. I met a future bandmate at that gig—I was tripping my face off, and she had glitter on her face and I kept talking to her because her face was doing the most amazing things.
aka the slimelight. oh for the nites in the vip room doin blow w/billy idol and “adam bomb” hahaha this place always sukked, everything lame about teh go-go 80s under one roof. raze it!
the long-running goth/industrial/rave night was greatness itself, and the fact that they let in under-21s created a cheerful, energetic vibe unmatched in any of the adult clubs.
i saw jeff mills play there on my birthday.
^^had no idea abt this^^
my unfavorable memories are from the earlier 80s. went there once for a village voice xmas party after it opened, and ligged open bar at a couple subsequent promo-party type events. kinda gross. there was always a louche wannabe rockstar vibe there, not my scene.
well I uh I found Jeff Mills’ Live In Tokyo double album for like $11 in a run-down punk shop in Memphis SO THERE
goner is not run down.
This city is not decadent enough if we can’t find one billionaire who wants to live in a deconsecrated church.
Laibach live at the Limelight was amazing.