Limelight new york mall

According to a bishop at the time , there was an implicit understanding that the house of worship was always meant to help the needy. Then Peter Gatien came along, catering to a different kind of need.

Gatien was a club owner who gobbled up nightclub spaces and transformed them into branded clubs called the Limelight — first in Hollywood, Florida, then Atlanta, and London. The Gothic church on 6th Ave proved too enticing — the one in London was also in a former house of worship — and soon Gatien turned the once reverent spot into a house of decadence, opening on November Its labyrinthine hallways and stairwells spilled into ornately designed lounges and dancefloors.

Old marble crypts sat next to rows of liquor bottles. The chapel became a VIP lounge. Upstairs, surrealist illustrator HR Giger , famous for his designs of the creatures from the Alien films , created a signature dance floor. However it was its occupants that made the headlines. In the late 80s and 90s, Peter Gatien and the Limelight helped foster its own buffet of self-made celebrities, the club kid, brightly colored freakshows whose only purpose was to shock and make everybody feel smaller.

Ruler among them was Michael Alig , an extravagent promoter of both his club, his lifestyle and himself. Actual celebrities who frequented the club, like Eddie Murphy and Michael Douglas, were no match for Alig and his menagerie, which often included a few New York celebrities around today — Amanda LaPore , Rupaul and the duo Heatherette , now legitimate fashion designers in their own right.

Alig would be charged with murdering fellow club kid Angel Melendez. Alig is in prison, serving a year sentence; Gatien is in Canada, presumably forever. The Limelight itself? In other words, create an enticing visual environment, provide some high-density people-watching, and throw in free entertainment.

To that end, Menashe intends to hire roving magicians and opera singers yep, opera singers on busy weekends. Even before the marketplace opens, Menashe is making plans to roll out mixed-use Limelights all over the country. Already a subscriber?

Log in or link your magazine subscription. Instead, it is a maze of confusing passageways that lead to absolutely nowhere. With the exception of 1 or 2 retailers, the product offering is tacky and, well, complete junk -- we're talking street fare level junk.

This shopping ""mall"" is failing with little or no foot traffic and has more personnel foot traffic than customers, which is exactly why all the press reviews were so negative. Limelight owners are now going to convert the space for millions of dollars mind you into a luxury department store with the goal of a ""Barneys-esque"" luxury vibe. Here's to wasting even more money! Limelight stories abound. Alig reportedly enjoyed spiking strangers' drinks with his own piss in addition to standard issue narcotics.

A diaper-clad St. Weren't the early '90s quaint?