Limelight Mall as Depressing as We Thought
This week's New York Magazine brings us the tragi-comic story of how an NYC nightlife institution has been transformed into a mall. We've been hearing for years that Limelight (a.k.a. Avalon to those under 35) was being turned into some kind of shopping center, but we never quite believed it would happen. Apparently we were wrong:
"The 20th Street landmark’s lancet windows, labyrinthine layout, and soaring chapel are the same as they ever were, but the sex-and-drugs-fueled bacchanal is long gone. Where makeout booths and cocaine corners once stood, now you’ll find limited-edition sneakers, handmade belts, MarieBelle chocolates, Hunter boots, tubes of Sue Devitt lip gloss, scented soaps from Caswell-Massey, and Grimaldi’s pizza."
Oh well, what can you do? We may have come to Limelight a bit late—long past it's prime, it was still known as Avalon, but even John Blair's epic Sunday night party was defunct by then—but we're still wicked depressed by this turn of events. Like some much modern cultural ephemera—Jersey Shore, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland—this seems like some kind of joke, something you'd see on a cut-away gag on Family Guy. "Storied Eighties Megaclub Reborn as a Mini Mall." It sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch. But no, it's real.
Next you'll be telling us that they're turning Roxy into some kind of big gay urban resort. Oh wait, they are.
