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Limelight: The Rise and Fall of New York’s Greatest Nightclub Empire
09.26.2011
02:23 pm
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Above. Madonna and WIlliam Burroughs at his 70th birthday party at Limelight (not in the film).

The new documentary, Limelight; The Rise and Fall of New York’s Greatest Nightclub Empire, which opened this weekend, I thought, was a lost opportunity. Produced by Jen Gatien, the daughter of former Limelight owner and NY nightlife kingpin, Peter Gatien, and directed by Billy Corben, the film takes a “true crime story” approach and focuses too much on the details, giving the audience far, far too much information on legal machinations and the minutia of DEA procedures. They took a story that was positively teaming with sex, drugs and rock-n-roll and managed to turn it into fairly dry “he said, he said” kind of thing. It’s not much better than a standard a TV investigation, truth be told.

I suppose I should tell you that I worked at the Limelight for a little less than a year in 1985, so I’m bringing that to the table.  If you actually care about the details, as I did, then it’s almost interesting, but by the end I’d had enough. My wife just hated it. For someone who never walked through the doors of the club, or who didn’t live in NYC between 1983 and 2002, there is very little to recommend Limelight.

Quizzically, there’s very, very little in the film about the crazy shit that actually went on at the Limelight. Unsurprisingly, since he is her father, Gatien and Corben’s film, concentrates on Peter Gatien, the enigmatic eye-patch wearing nightclub impresario who stayed on top of NYC nightlife for two decades before being hounded out of the country by bogus DEA harassment and the IRS. Instead of giving you any real sense of the “scene” he presided over in an opening montage or something, the film starts straight off the bat more or less as a biography of Gatien. He is an interesting character, don’t get me wrong, but there were so many other (much more) interesting characters running around his clubs that focusing too much on Gatien is a mistake (My own memory of Peter Gatien was that whenever he was around, no one ever said anything and he himself was a man of very few words. There was always an awkwardness—in others, not Peter—when he was in the room. I think he enjoyed being intimidating).

The club’s early success is glossed over in a matter of minutes. None of the characters I saw there frequently are even mentioned (Billy Idol and Duran Duran’s John Taylor deserved merit badges for committing courageous acts of decadence, let’s just say) and even Michael Alig’s dramatic downward spiral into drugs and then murder, is given comparatively short-shrift. Clearly, Gatien’s goal with the film is to exonerate her father’s reputation and on that level it does a fairly good job. Still, outside of the Gatien family, employees of Peter’s clubs, or people who frequented them, I can’t imagine this film will hold that much interest for a general audience.

Bonus anecdote: I could tell you one of hundreds of stories about Limelight and some of the things I saw there, but here is just one: It was 1985. It was late, maybe 2am when this occurred. I was 19-years-old (not old enough to drink or work there, obviously) and standing behind the front desk/coat check area. A very jolly Rod Stewart walked in with two women, one on each arm. The trio was feeling no pain, let’s say. An extremely drunk Wall Street guy saw them and in a very loud voice exclaimed “ROD STEWART! Hey man, I’m your biggest fan!” Stewart stopped, cocked an eyebrow and wryly regarded the drunk yuppie for a moment and then, stating the obvious, whistled “Fuck off, mate” through his teeth and they continued making their way into the club.

I know that sounds mean, but it was laugh out loud funny. “Fuck off, mate” was the only thing to say at that particular moment… Maybe you had to be there…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.26.2011
02:23 pm
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‘Limelight’ - a new documentary about the legendary New York nightclub


 
I’m sure we’re all pretty familiar with the Michael Alig/club kids story by now, but let’s face it, no matter how many times it is told it never fails to shock and entertain. Limelight is a new documentary which recounts the story yet again, but as opposed to Party Monster, Shockumentary or James St James’ excellent Disco Bloodbath book, the focus this time in on the Limelight club itself and its owner, the nightclub impresario Peter Gatien.

Gatien owned a string of venues in New York, Atlanta and London during the 80s and 90s, including the very successful Tunnel and Club USA in Times Square. The Limelight was perhaps the most notorious (due in no small part to the club kids’ involvement), and became the focus of Mayor Giuliani’s crackdown on the city’s night life and drug culture. Gatien made a fortune from his venues, but was found guilty of tax evasion in the late Nineties and deported to his native Canada. Gatien is interviewed in Limelight, along with a prison-bound Michael Alig and everyone’s favorite vegan porn-hound Moby (who describes the Limelight as being like “pagan Rome on acid”). The documentary is released on Friday, here’s the trailer: 
 

 
Previously on DM:
Larry Tee & the club kids: Come Fly With Me
Ghosts of New York: the Limelight disco is now a mall
Party Monster: new Michael Alig prison interview
Nelson Sullivan: pioneering chronicler of NYC nightlife in the 1980s (featuring an interview with the legendary queen Christina)

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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09.18.2011
02:58 pm
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Nelson Sullivan films Quentin Crisp at the Flaunt It Club, 1988

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Nelson Sullivan was a highly talented and prolific videographer, who documented New York’s art, club and youth scene of the 1980s. His filming style was fluid, raw and breathless, with jump-cuts and in-camera editing, all fabulously complimented the city’s dynamism, as it focussed on luminaries Keith Haring, Michael Alig, John Sex and RuPaul.

Just as he was about to produce his own cable TV show, Sullivan died of a heart attack in 1989. It was a sad demise to such a genuine talent

Back in December 1988, Sullivan filmed Quentin Crisp at the Flaunt It Club.

The Flaunt It Club was another brilliant publicity stunt created by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey to promote their disco act The Fabulous Pop Tarts. It was was presented every Sunday night at LImelight NYC and gave other aspiring performers the chance to appear alongside established personalities in a talk show format broadcast, broadcast later that week on Manhattan public access television. Quentin Crisp was the celebrity guest this night, and the event was documented on video by Nelson Sullivan. Robert Coddington edited this from Nelson’s original videotape.

The brilliant Fenton Bailey once pitched a documentary on Nelson, where he described “Nelson’s epic canvas of Downtown” as an:

“...anthropological documentary that takes us beneath the fashionable surface and shows us the reality.

The reality is that Downtown is a tribe, a loose-knit collection of cultural refugees socially bonded by their rather anti-social ambition to make it. Although not an apple-pie Main Street nuclear family, it is an extended family much like a chorus line. Indeed Nelson’s work shows us, in addition to the glorious highs when the show goes on, the individual lows when its all over, the lonely moments of vulnerability. He was able to do this because most of those he filmed were his friends who trusted him, and who - given that Nelson’s camera went wherever he went and was for at least ten years as natural an extension of his body as his arms or legs - simply forgot that the camera was there.

And so the most captivating and poignant part of Nelson’s work is not the famous who have emerged from Downtown, but the people who are left behind and who strive in vain for the limelight. One of them himself, Nelson filmed the wannabees, the never-will-bees and the has-beens. While he captured the glorious orgy of self-invention of those seeking fame and fortune, he also captured the price it often exacted, the despair and self-destruction that followed repeated frustration and failure.

This is Sullivan’s film of Quentin Crisp at the Flaunt It Club, which reveals a delightfully at ease Mr. Crisp, enjoying the company of NY’s young things.

DM’s Richard Metzger writes about Nelson Sullivan here.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Inside Quentin Crisp’s Apartment


Quentin Crisp on Gay Kiss-In


Nelson Sullivan Pioneering Chronicler of NYC Nightlife in the 1980s


 
Part 2 of Quentin Crisp at the Flaunt It Club, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.27.2011
05:00 pm
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When Madonna met William S. Burroughs
01.31.2011
12:37 pm
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An uncredited photo taken of William S. Burroughs and an “up and coming” young Madonna during the author’s big 70th birthday bash at the Limelight nightclub in New York, February 1984.

You have to love this example of her insane chutzpah. He probably had no idea who she was, but there she is, right in the middle of it! I also like the detail of the joint being passed. What a great photo.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.31.2011
12:37 pm
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Ghosts of New York: The Limelight disco is now a mall
05.10.2010
06:45 pm
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When I was poking around trying to find a good image to go with the Michael Alig post, I happened across a few items related to the club where Michael and the Club Kids infamously held court, The Limelight. Opened in late 1983 by Canadian businessman Peter Gatien, the Limelight was one of the mega-clubs that followed in the wake of Studio 54. The club operated in a deconsecrated church which had been given historically “preserved” status by the city of New York. It was the scene of some epic debauchery, that club. Believe me when I tell you because I worked there for a little less than a year (when I was still three years shy of legal drinking age, I might add) during 1985.

But now, the legendary magnet for sinners is… a retail outlet? Yup, the site of some seriously fucked up shit—and many memories of my own ill-spent youth—now houses 50 small retailers including handmade chocolatiers, Le Sportsac and shoe stores. There is even a food court. Oh my, oh my.

The other news is that the one-time mega-promoter of gay NYC nightlife, Marc Berkley passed away in April. Marc got his career started at the Limelight with his Sunday night parties and went on to become one of the most powerful club promoters in New York. I recall him fondly, a quick-witted, sharp-tongued James Coco-type, who always seemed right out of a sitcom to me.  The manager of the club, a tall, taciturn fellow named Tom Buckley, also recently passed away.
 
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Photo: Marc Berkley and friends.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.10.2010
06:45 pm
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