Clubland The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture

1 THE ONE-EYED DON New York City, Early October 1995 It was one of those brilliant autumn days in New York, the city radiant with luminous color. While the soothing afternoon light skipped gaily across the surface of the Hudson River, Peter Gatien's world was all grim turmoil. A couple of nights ago, in the early hours, the stony-faced Gatien saw his flagship venue in Chelsea, the Limelight, padlocked by the NYPD. Friday evening, just at the peak of business, and his temple of thump-thump-thump--located at the corner of Twentieth Street and Sixth Avenue in a weathered Victorian pile that once housed St. Peter's Episcopal church, then later a drug treatment center--was packed to the vaulted rafters with gyrating penitents hanging off the two tiers of metal balconies that surrounded the cavernous main floor. The irony wasn't lost on the revelers, who seemed to take a perverse delight in frolicking on the altar or sniffing blow in the pulpit. Out on the churning dance floor, the atmosphere was like the pagan party scene in some Hollywood biblical epic, the last fling of a primitive tribe threatened with extinction by powerful social trends few of its members could fully comprehend. Meanwhile, a string of stretch limousines idled impatiently outside the noisy nightclub, which was fast becoming a stone monument to an era of all-out licentiousness, now vanishing under the puritanical political regime that had taken over the city. Nonetheless, a long procession of young party people, all eager to pay the twenty-dollar admittance, shuffled along the avenue. A drag queen with a clipboard and a bad attitude inspected the line for the undesirable or the unfashionable. All of a sudden, the block was filled with police cars and paddy wagons, their flashing blue lights illuminating the bulky brown facade and soaring bell tower. A team of undercover detectives--men and women who had been busy buying drugs in the Limelight since early August--was already in position inside the club, when a phalanx of fifty uniformed cops, wearing nylon NYPD windbreakers and carrying high-powered flashlights, stormed through the narrow front entrance of the edifice, rushed up the spiral staircase and through the lobby, which was filled with the obligatory video monitors and bad art installations. Their senses assaulted on all flanks, some of the police wore earplugs to protect themselves against the cacophony emanating from the colossal speakers. Above their heads, half-naked girls writhed in cages. Barreling down the dark corridors, pushing their way through the startled crowd, and peering into murky recesses, the cops fanned out through the labyrinthine club, each of them carrying a list with the names and photos of thirty known drug dealers. The Limelight was a huge space. The ceiling stretched four stories high over the main dance floor. Five staircases from the main chamber led to numerous lounges, alcoves, VIP rooms, and the chapel area (sometimes known as the Shampoo Bar), all of which were decorated in different themes (the TV Room, the Peacock Room, the Topiary Room, the Opium Den, the Arcadia Room). No wonder the cops became disoriented and had trouble finding their way around. The paramilitary seizure did not go according to plan. The police were puzzled that none of Gatien's employees seemed particularly surprised by the bombshell assault. As the animated night dwellers filed out of the club, the cops also wondered why twenty-six of the intended targets were absent that night. They'd received numerous reports about the furious drug action at the club. They'd heard about the special rooms, designated as hard-core drug spots, where guards stood outside and permitted only trusted patrons to enter. But, that night, the place was cleaner than the manicured grounds of Disney World. In the end, the bust was a nonevent. An embarrassed NYPD only managed to make three minor arreOwen, Frank is the author of 'Clubland The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture' with ISBN 9780767917353 and ISBN 0767917359.