A Nightclub Classic

Limelight is an old nightclub that used to be in Manhattan, NY in The Village.  It was a popular dance club in the 80s that featured House Music.  The interesting history about it is that it used to be a church, but they converted it into a nightclub.  

The Limelight is the name of a chain of nightlclubs  that were owned and operated by Peter Gatien with locations in Atlanta, Hollywood, Florida, Chicago, New York City, and London. 

The Limelight in New York City, which was owned by Peter Gatien, opened in November 1983. It was housed in a former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, a Gothic Revival brownstone building which was built in 1844-1845, as designed by architect Richard Upjoin. 

In the early 1970s, when the parish merged with two others, the church was deconsecrated and sold to Odyssey House, a Drug rehab program. Amidst financial hardship, Odyssey House sold it to Gatien in 1982. 

 Located on Avenue of  the Americas, at West 20th Street, the New York Limelight originally started as a disco and rock club. In the 1990s, it became a prominent place to hear techno, goth, and industrial music, and to obtain recreational drugs. 

It earned the media's attention in 1996, when Club Kid and party promoter Michael Alig was arrested and later convicted for the killing and dismemberment of Angel Melendez, a drug dealer at the club.  The 2003 film Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green, was based on this event. The Limelight was closed by the police, and subsequently reopened several times during the 1990s.