The Limelight - Definition and Overview

The Limelight is the name of two different nightclubs: one in New York and one in London, UK. Both were based in old churches:

• The Limelight, London, was located in a Welsh Presbyterian church that dates back to 1754 on Shaftesbury Avenue, just off Cambridge Circus. The club was owned by Peter Stringfellow and was popular in the 1980s. The clubs decline in popularity led to its closure and takeover in 2003 by Australian pub chain 'The Walkabout' who have converted it into a sports bar.

• The Limelight in New York, which was owned by Peter Gatien and designed by Ari Bahat, opened in November 1983. It was located in a former church on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, Manhattan and was a prominent place to hear techno, goth and industrial music and to obtain recreational drugs. It hit the news in 1996 when club and party promoter Michael Alig was arrested and later convicted for the killing and dismemberment of Angel Melendez, a Limelight-based drug dealer. The Limelight was closed by the police, but subsequently reopened several times during the 1990s. In November 2003, it was reopened under the name of "The Avalon Club"

See also: The Slimelight

External references and links

• Frank Owen, 2003 Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312287666 (UK title Clubland Confidential, Ebury Press)
• Review of Frank Owen's, Clubland Confidential in the UK Guardian (http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4700219-99947,00.html)