Limelight's Twilight

Remember Limelight? Well, we do. That grotesque nightlife boite housed in a deconsecrated church on Sixth Avenue that played host to numerous debauched evenings of our youth, most notably the after-party of my senior prom, which incidentally was held at the World Trade Center (Yes, I’m aware of how shamelessly I dated myself.) The thing is, no matter how many late night hours we’ve logged in at the paltry pourhouse, we don’t remember when Limelight was actually cool. Always a bit seedy, always a bit cheesy, always a bit Avenue of the Americas, since its opening in 1983, it has become a relic of campy New York nightclub history joining the ranks of other loathed-but-loved clubs like Tunnel, The Roxy or the present-day Marquee.

To go to Limelight was to relive one of Jay McInerney’s novels. Often ripe with aging trannies, Bolivian Marching Powder and overzealous yuppies from the Upper East Side, even at the precocious age of sixteen, I knew I was seeing New York at its best worst. Even today’s Generation Y wanted a piece of the crumbling club with one of Gossip Girl’s rookie episodes featuring the disintegrating discoteque where Chuck Bass notoriously seals his bad boy image by attempting to date rape Jenny on Limelight's roof (Yeah, we also got over that.)



But New York has taken another turn for the worse by shutting down the legendary lewd nightspot in exchange for the reopening of the notoriously corny clubwear shop Lounge. Even the name elicits cringes. The boutique most known for their oppressively loud main stream house music, eurotrash customers making the pilgrimage to Soho and abundant collection of overly-ripped, low rise denim, seems to be flourishing in a time where most stores are closing. A sign of the apocalypse? We think so.

Final Word: Regardless of it less-than-stellar reputation, we still mourn the loss of Limelight. Now as we whiz up Sixth Ave instead of amorously watching aging B & T crowds peter out of the eroding landmark in the wee hours of the night drunk with rum and cokes and MDMA, we’ll have to see them shopping, in broad daylight. Ugh.