Limelight NYC

overhearing boy George trying to find out where an after party was, but no one would tell him. he seemed friendless....

I met Madonna's backup dancer Slam there.

Michael Aleg's Wednesday club nights Disco 2000. The cast of the first season of Real World went there one night, and Michael can be seen in the episode.

The only club that would ever let me in for free sometimes.

Where was it? I think I may have been.

Back in the day

Was it open in the late '70s?

Seeing a very gorgeous Joey Stefano at his peak in line for coat check, and grabbing ahold of my roommate and spinning him face to face with his number one fan. My roommate was left speechless (rarely ever happened) and angry at me for putting him on the spot. This was early 90’s before Boston’s Lyons brothers stepped in and ruined everything with Avalon.

New Year's Eve in the late 1980s or early '90s. Duke Ellington and His Orchestra were the entertainment.

Op is the desperate old creep/ murderer Michael Alig. He is 2,3,4... Pathetic.

Alig is disgusting scum trash. Perfect for new york.

Wasn’t there for Limelight but was for Avalon. It was my early 20s and I was new to NYC so I always had a blast and would hook up with a hot guy or two.

R8, what was the change btw the two that made you dislike Avalon?

Damn, Joey Stefano was sexy.

I have no idea where to even begin...

I love doing it

I left NYC in 1991, and as I recall, Limelight was over by then...

Not being able to get in with my fake ID.

I also remember Limelight fading by early 90s, My college days included the clubs around and by the time I was legally able to go it was passe.

[quote]New Year's Eve in the late 1980s or early '90s. Duke Ellington and His Orchestra were the entertainment.

You must have been doing some heavy drugs, because Duke died in 1974.

Now, it is a fucking mall. WTF happened to NYC?

Edith Wharton was a member of that church back in the day.

I always thought it was kinda hype more than substance. The bubble room, the club kid characters. I preferred places that were less pretentious and more about dancing- like Sound Factory. Limelight was always “oh it’s so cool - a club in a church” . A precursor of the Disneyfied NYC.

R18 sex and the city

R20. Well said. It was always a level or two cheesier than the truly great clubs.

R15 Limelight was not over in 1991

Fuck that. Limelight was for tourists.

Twilo and Soundfactory 'til 9:30 AM on a Sunday morning with pupils as big as saucers, tripping over empty Poland Spring water bottles...

Now we're talking!😂

Twilo was always getting busted for one thing or another. Wednesdays or Tuesdays?, it morped into a gay club after 11, IIRC. Those were the days of Ectasy and Twilo and Soundfactory were rife with dealers. Everyone bought $6 bottles of Poland Spring at the bar and refilled them at bathroom sinks. Only tourists actually bought cocktails. One needs to stay hydrated on E, especially the speedy Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi was a round white tablet with the company logo stamp. Often people would dance themselves into exhaustion and pass out. Twilo got busted for hiding these people in the broom closet. Occasionally people would die because they had an undiagnosed heart problem.

In general, like Saturdays at Soundfactory, the love, compassion and comradery between people of all creeds, races and ethnic backgrounds was a utopian fuzzy blanket. It changed you forever. The outpouring of love towards total strangers in a big hive as one kind entity hinted of hope for the human race. Deep house music all night long

I have to agree Twilo on Saturdays and John Balir’s Limelight on Sundays. My heyday was ‘late 90’s, so the biggest difference honestly was that the drugs were bouncy and soft, not what was served up later. Meth and GHB were more prevalent and Twilo closed when there were several overdoses. Early Limelight had a more casual vibe, by the time Avalon arrived it was more strait laced

White dove and especially Pink dove were manufactured to be less speedy and more loving. People could not stop hugging one another.

Damned shit needs to be pumped into our planet's water supply. That'll fix us.

I went to Limelight in the mid 80s, damn it was fun. I remember one very muscular guy standing at the balcony and briefly pissing onto the crowd below.

The washer-dryer room, sitting on one and making out with an ACT UP pal when Jean Paul Gautier walked in on us, watched, and applauded.

Used to attend Res-Erection on Fridays, and regularly had sex in the bathroom with this one hot French guy, though we never saw each other outside of the club.

It was one of the most fabulous sausage fests in Manhattan. I met some of the best bottoms there. Cum Dumpsters were around left and right.

R6 link is an automatic download.

Didn't Limelight have the hip hop floor in the basement or am I thinking of another club? I just remember it being hot as hell. Smothering heat.

Disco 2000 with the vile Alig crew. Jesus what a slimy but fun bacchanal.

One hazy memory: there was this box that contained a naked go-go boy in it. You could reach through these holes in the box that had gloves attached and fondle him.

Oh, and my friend - a guy - met Leonardo DiCaprio there and went home with him.

Not joking.

R32, I hate that! Everyone please call it out when an image ends up being a download. Tag that shit! Some fuck head in the Carolyn Besette thread uploaded tons of images that were all downloads. Deleting those files completely was such a bitch. Have to worry that any image you click here can be a download ruining our experience.

Today's Molly is absolute cut crap compared to the E tablets of yesteryear. At least the pills couldn't be adulterated. I went looking for E on the Dark Web and found it but needed to buy in bulk with bitcoin.

I went there on a trip from college. I took a wrong turn going up some stairs and ended up in an orgy.

R37. - You took the right turn.

River Phoenix also went there.

Marky Mark performing and dropping his pants. Queens swooned.

The "gay" entrance for upstairs was on the 20th St. side. Here is a short promo vid from the mid 90's, prob. 1995.

Best 90s New York club

Ugh - Limelight was the worst. Sound Factory, Twilo, even Tunnel were better. Limelight was B&T.

R41, looks like fun. Nightclubs in America suck now.

Time Cafe and Fez

Limelight early to mid-90's? In any way legendary? Oh, honey.

Thanks to Mark Berkley, I never paid to get in. What a fun guy.

Yes, Tunnel and Twilo and even Arena at Palladium were preferable to Limelight by the mid 90s

My favorite was Roxy

Limelight was over by the 90s.

I guess it all depends on personal taste and preferred clientele. I had some LI and bridge and tunnel friends from (Ivy League) college who loved Limelight in the mid to late 80's, when it was over for us snotty trendoids. Then it was revived for club kids but none of us had any interest in their shitty shenanigans.

There were clubs known for playing better music and bigger dance floors, but Limelight was a dance club crossed with a sex club. It was a 90s Studio 54 where you would see celebrities doing drugs and getting your dick sucked at the same time.

I remember Limelight as a trendy follow-up to Area - which was truly cool, chic and unique.

R34 Sorry but I don't believe you. During the club kids days, even at the end of them, Leo would have been 15-17 years old. I don't believe that he was out picking up men at clubs where he can be seen and recognized as the kid on that sitcom with Alan Thicke and the Jeebus freak dude,

Area was amazing!! My first theme night was 'War,' and my date and I had hot skimpy camoflage outfits. The invites were so creative; pills that became foam dinosaurs in water, tiny books that played music. I have them somewhere...

One of my favorite get-ups to Danceteria (downtown) was zombie swamp stripper. It involved ripped and stringy home dyed cottons in night greens and mud tones and fishnet.

If you don't think Limelight was one of the craziest, drug-fueled, debaucherous clubs in the 90s, then you weren't there.

I used to hang with Anne Bogart and other downtown artists at Area. It really was amazing

MARS over in the meatpacking district was always fun in the late 80's. On Sundays, it was Mars Needs Men - and was THE place to be on a Sunday night.

R59 Except for all us grungy types who rarely if ever when to big gay discos, on the West Side, natch. Every time a new night or club opened our shitty dives would see a dent in for a month at most then everyone came crawling back East.

SqueezeBox! was one of the only exciting trash places to appear on the West side. Plus the tranny bars on the West Side and Times Square.

There is really no convincing way to claim this or that place was THE PLACE because it was always about niche.

Is Disco Bloodbath a good read? Or is it mainly about Alig?

I had only been once but it basically a hyped-up place for club-kids to do drugs in the open. I didn't get a good vibe from this place at all. Twilo and Tunnel were better. I preferred clubs like Danceteria since the main attraction was the music acts.

I was a little too old to, uh, fully embrace Limelight but did go there in the early-mid 90's. It was all drugs and club kids and my friend Amy who was an NYU law student by day and a Zima product placement person (sort of a shot girl for alcopop) there by night. It didn't pay her way through law school but exposed her to a side of life she hadn't previously dreamed of let alone experienced.

[quote] Limelight was B&T

B&T?

^Bridge & Tunnel. Come on. Even flyovers who watched Law and Order know that one.

In the movie "Parting Glances," there's a scene that takes place in Limelight. I have a DVD of the movie and I watch it every several years or so, usually around the time of Gay Pride, and that scene never fails to transport me back to that era.

Every club in New York is bridge and tunnel

Used to go to limelight, downstairs at tunnel, MK, the World, Nell’s around 1988-89. One year of going to clubs every week and doing tons of Anything I could get was enough for me. The club kid scene was just wack anything could happen on any night I switched to dive bars after ‘90: Peggy sues, Sophie’s, blue & gold and holiday, b bar. Good times all but exhausting!

I didn't mind the B&T crowd, particularly the Long Island cute newbies who were easy to take home and fuck, because they couldn't take the LIRR back to their mom's house at 2am.

Bridge and tunnel have better bodies

Want there an Attic room that was like a back room?

Yes there was also a photo of River Phoenix upstairs

I thought Disco Bloodbath was a fun read.

Mmmmm. Limelight, sweetie.

Oh, yeah Limelight. Yeah, Pats, that was fantastic.

Oh, yeah. A little this, a little that, a little bumpity bump bump and all of sudden you’re at Bianca’a table.

Yeah, Bianca. Lovely Bianca. I mean it was - it was - Pats, was it really Bianca?

No, darling, I’m pretty sure it was just some drag queen from New Jersey, but she had it down and it was bloody Limelight, sweetie. It was fabulous! We were fabulous! And -

Oh, look, darling. Bake Off’s up next.

Party Monster the documentary is worth watching.

Party Monster: The Shockumentary

I got crabs there. Upstairs I remember some kind of a claustrophobic lounge where guys would jerk off, like everyone else I pulled my junk out and the next day found crabs.

We use to go to Limelight in the mid 80's, 84-86 and would always get chosen out of the crowd to get in for free.... it was fun being young and pretty. During that time the place was new and was attracting lots of celebrities, but I would still get bored there and have to head down to the gay bars in the West or East Village to actually find a trick.

exactly R80

The first time I heard this I remember I was dancing with 4 female models on the main floor and all these straight guys were creeping on them. It was that uncool that guys creeped on beautiful women. They had no game.

Gabriel Rotello's Downtown Divas Show

Nelson Sullivan recorded an entire show, which includes Dean and the Weenies

Are there any clubs left in 2018 NYC ?

^^^If you have to ask......

Apparently some obscure impermanent parties in Brooklyn - but nothing like the consistent Friday and Saturday clubs of the 80-90s. I don’t know what the gay Millenials who like to dance do in NYC. Stand and sway while looking at their phone at some Instagram - able bar.

I was young and snuck in a couple times. I loved feeling so transgressive and sophisticated.

Lame. Not even close to the (two) Danceterias (original and successor), Hurrah's, the Ritz. Or even the Copa (at the old Plaza Cinema). MAYBE better than the Surf Club only because the Surf Club was pathetic. The Copa was its contemporary but had Rupaul and all that 1980s style costume transvestite debauchery in the lower level and wannabe Madonna-ish cool vogue-ing shit on the main level. I shot a commercial at Limelight, was there for a night out a few times, and sent my brother there when he was in from out of town. The definition of bridge and tunnel when that was a bad thing, lots of coke, and if it was debauched, surely it was sadly so, and try hard.

One can see from the clubs I list that I was as mainstream as it gets, don't remember the truly cool places (if I ever even knew them), and still, the Limelight really belonged on Long Island.

Agree with R89 - as long as I knew it, it was a tacky Disney-Ish club (“isn’t it cool, we’re dancing in a church). The cool clubs were Sound Facrory, Sound Facrory Bar, Twilo, even the Roxy was cooler.

R89 None of those clubs were around in the 90s

R90. All of those clubs were at least 50% bridge and tunnel every night

I know that R89, but *I* was. So I am judging the Limelight against them, and the Limelight was a pathetic wannabe.

The Copa WAS around in the 1990s because I went there.

I mean I know that R92, I, of course, am R89.

R93 you sound like the pathetic wannabe

Limelight was the beginning of the posturing nightlife vs the fun, wild, unpretentious dance clubs.

Limelight wasn't a posturing club at all. Everyone did whatever the fuck they wanted to.

Rise of the Troll Machines

R97 if you're talking about the Limelight on 20th, it was the definition of basic. It was the opposite of free-wheeling, un-self-conscious, don't give a fuck. EVERYBODY gave a fuck. And as others have said, it was stuffed to the gills with bridge and tunnel and meatheads.

R99 clearly you are the definition of basic

The crackdown on drugs being sold in clubs and owners receiving kickbacks from dealers killed Njghtlife and ushered in bottle service.

As far as trashy west side clubs, no one has mentioned Mother and their infamous Tuesday Jackie 60 parties. I remember bumming a cigarette off of Deborah Harry there. Each Tuesday had a very specific them. I remember one was Tranny Hookers in the ER. There were shows every hour and on this particular night they were performing fake emergency procedures on patrons while everyone else was dancing. You gay me distinctly remembers some guy getting jerked off by one of the Tranny Hookers in the ER and actually cumming on the operating table. Jacked up I just saw one of the nurses wiping her hand on the curtain.

Velvet Foxy was Uber trashy back around that time. The Box on the LES now tries to be daring. But some performer will just flash their tits and we’re suppose to go crazy. Nothing like Krylon Superstar doing a cream enema and then squirting it out into her coffee, then drinking it. Or watching some hot guy pull a tampon out of his GF with his teeth.

All this bridge and tunnel bullshit. Were you born in Manhattan? And if you were, it's pathetic you're still there.

I know the Limelight had a Bridge and Tunnel crowd but I thought they all entered on 6th avenue. I used to enter on 20th street and I remembered it was mostly gay and, I thought, local.

I was born in Brooklyn, R102. I have lived in Manhattan, but am now living in Brooklyn again. Bridge 'n Tunnel is shorthand for meatheads, men and woman, and usually alludes to New Jersey, Staten and Long Island. The term is obsolete now but applied then. It wasn't about who was a Manhattanite.

Bridge & Tunnel includes Brooklyn & Queens!

Bridge and tunnel totally means Brooklyn and queens

Bridge & tunnel was also jersey city and Long Island

And Hoboken

Students at the lesser Ivies, and state schools = bridge and tunnel