It was the days before bottle service, and the Tunnel was also a place for the elites of rap to scale the heights of conspicuous consumption. None of it would have probably happenedif he hadnt lost his eye when he was six-years-old. Peter Gatien, 67, says over the phone from his Toronto home. The main dance floor of the Limelight in 1993. Over the past two decades, he has certainly accomplished that. Photo credit: Tina Paul 1992, Sex, Drugs, and the Glory Days of NYC Nightlife: Peter Gatien Looks Back, Face-to-Maskless-Face with the MAGA March on Washington, Philadelphia Clinched the Election for Biden. Im a good shepherd, Mr. Gatien said. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The world in which Gatien operated was crawling with characters of ill repute. His wife is Alessandra Gatien (m. 1994), Adrienne Gatien (m. 19841994), Sheila Gatien (m. 19721978). His eye for talent paid off here, too. In October 1995, the club was raided by NYPD, but they were only able to make three small arrests of marijuana dealers because Gatien had been tipped off. He pleaded guilty to state tax evasion in. I fell in love with that building, he said. This is a celebrity in NYC that has done so much to shape music and a generation. March 25, 2020 In 2007 I received an email from a woman named Jen Gatien. On Tuesday, Daniel was reportedly taken off life support. The trial was a fabulist farrago from the start. All Rights reserved. There was nothing left, save for the $500 in his pocket given to him by his attorney. Limelight Billy Corben's docu about onetime Manhattan nightclub kingpin Peter Gatien is a fairly wobbly walk down a Memory Lane littered with feathers, leather and empty coke vials. Its to be celebrated. I think the Peter Gatien acquittal still stands out in my mind as one of the most thrilling, says Brafman, who would later win legal battles for P. Diddy and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. [1] In 1976, he read about a bankrupt nightclub in Florida known as Rumbottoms; the space became the first incarnation of The Limelight. From the late 70s to the late 90s, Peter Gatien reigned as New York's "King of Clubs", running four of the city's most hedonistic playgrounds which operated seven nights a week during that time.With Limelight, Tunnel, Palladium, and Club USA, Gatien brought Babylon back to life, introducing spaces where innovative and influential new forms of music, fashion, art and culture could flourish. Morgenthau died in 2019. He is greatest referred to as the previous proprietor of a . (During our interview Gatien opts for a pair of electric blue Christian Dior shades instead, saying I dont wear a patch much anymore, if at all.). He now lives a quiet life in a three-bedroom apartment in Toronto with his third wife, Alessandra, and has spent the bulk of the last two decades trying to put his life back together. And then he ran out of squeegee people, says Gatien, and I was the face of nightlife back then. In that brooding, eye-patch clad visage Giuliani found the perfect, tabloid-ready target for his moral crusades. Eight years later, Im still fighting for justice, Untold stories from the early years of Second City, the group that changed comedy, Inside the Ontario years of Elon Musk, the worlds most absurd billionaire, I spent five years in a white-power gang: Inside the twisted world of Torontos white supremacist movement. His wife and daughter are the classiest people you will ever meet It is a devastating sin that the system chewed him out this way. Genealogy for Marie Solne "Sarah" Bellhumuer/Belmer (Gatien) (1827 - 1907) family tree on Geni, with over 240 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. After his arrest, the legal odyssey lasted two and a half years until he was acquitted of all drug charges in 1998. No, this prodigal son has not returned from Canadian exile to whine about the Wall Street invasion of Williamsburg or the death of Dean & Deluca. I either did it for too long or had more strength than I realized or maybe it was a combination of us sitting on top of him and he couldnt breathe or whatever it was, he just stopped writhing., Alig added, Wed been up for four days. Select from premium Peter Gatien of the highest quality. Thats whats missing now that raw energy. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 1999, for which he was sentenced to a fine of $1.6 million and a 60-day prison sentence, along with 5 years' probation. Peter Gatien (born August 14, 1952) is a Canadian club owner and party promoter. Discover Peter Gatien's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. People Projects Discussions Surnames He is best known as the former owner of several prominent New York City nightclubs, including Club USA, The Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel. The Limelight and Tunnel are long gone. Afterwards, Gatien did all he could to beef up security, even hiring a former special narcotics prosecutor to monitor his clubs. Grace Jones and Gloria Gaynor rocked the club and he took a chance on a weird act called the Village People, booking them four months in advance. (He paid some club employees in cash.). He was reportedly living in Florida for a while and worked as a DJ and landscaper in recent years. If everybody is dressed in Armani, its boring. He wanted to meet me at Bowery Bar, pre-pandemic, to chew over the line items of his formidable career as the preeminent swizzle stick in the cocktail of Manhattan nightlife. Marks family hires a lawyer for him who used to work in the DAs office, and he is eventually exonerated. In the end, they entertain each other., Mr. Gatien found success in his adopted city, but he did not find universal love. In 1998, a year after Alig and Riggs were sent to prison, Daniel pleaded guilty to possessing $3,000 that had been stolen from Melendezs corpse, without being interviewed by NYPD detectives investigating the murder. Their parties gave rise to the so-called Club Kids, a pioneering group of ecstasy-addled downtown personalities known for dressing in elaborate drag and pulling outrageous stunts. He was born in Cornwall on August 08, 1952. and the suburbs, and it was Asian and it was African American, it was Caucasian, it was straight, it was gay and in hindsight it was really precious, but at the time it just seemed normal. The second ever electronic music performance I had was at Limelight, Moby tells Rolling Stone. They took everything from him and also removed him from the country. He was once dubbed as the "King of New York Clubs", during his time in New York City. (The family joined him in Toronto soon after). So, how much is Peter Gatien worth at the age of 70 years old? Informants who had flipped on Gatien flipped back to his side, claiming the government put words in their mouth and then some. The longest period of time in which The Limelight remained closed was from 1996 to 1998. We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 8 August. In following years, he opened Limelights in Chicago, London and Atlanta, where, he writes in his book, a live panther briefly roamed beneath a tempered glass dance floor. The club also served as a location for Hal Ashby's film The Slugger's Wife (1985), . Opens Sept. 23 at AMC Yonge-Dundas. He is from Canada. Thats like an eternity in the nightclub business. After they arrested Alig and Riggs, the two cops were told to stand down and all their files on the case mysteriously disappeared from their office, Gengo told The Post last week. The Gothic Revival church also provided a bump in publicity when a handful of picketers showed up on opening night carrying placards with messages like Dont Dance on My Religion, alongside clubgoers hauling a life-size cross carrying a Jesus figure in a loincloth. Its not as good as it used to be, I can tell you that right now, he says. The Limelight - Stunning Photos From 1990s Favorite NYC Nightclub - New York City, NY - New York City after dark in the '90s was an ecstatic time captured by photographer Steve Eichner. Police spotted Daniel, 44, lying on the northbound platform of the G train in the Washington/Clinton Avenue station. In 2003, Gatien lived alone in a $1,200 one-bedroom apartment on King West, waiting a year before his wife and son would make the trip from NYChis wife, Alessandra, wanted their son to complete sixth grade before they moved. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? One such character was promoter Michael Alig. This is the perfect example of what happens when the government loses, says Brafman. With a full complement of primary care professionals, we're here to serve you. The Feds finally nabbed him for income-tax evasion in 1999 for failing to report $1 million in club earnings,. Peter Gatien. edit: The longest period of time in which The Limelight remained closed was from 1996 to 1998. Once upon a time, before Twitter, Tinder, and Tik-Tok before blogs and bottle service, even culture was born in nightclubs. Ive been approached by Vegas, he said. One night, Gatien claims, one pestered a busboy so much, the worker finally sold him a joint just to shut him up. Wearing a vintage Gaultier spring coat over a black hoodie, with oversize white headphones cradling his neck, he seemed at ease just to blend in. I worked the door (Geiger Room VIP) for Peter Gatien in 99. If you only read The New York Post from 1996 to 2000, then Im a villain, he said. Updated. Located in the "disco Kroger" complex on Piedmont Road in Buckhead, the Atlanta Limelight opened its doors in February 1980 in the former home of the Harlequin Dinner Theatre. Just the raw energy, the exuberance, he said, sipping an iced tea. Its a young mans game., Peter Gatien, the 90s Club King, Wants His Final Say, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/style/peter-gatien-limelight-tunnel-club-kid.html. Photo credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images, Main dance floor with mezzanine slide at Club USA, 1992. Located in a neighborhood that was then an industrial backwater, the club provided a safe space in downtown Manhattan for large groups of young African-Americans. After spending 17 years being shuttled between state penitentiaries, followed by nearly three years. In 1996 Alig, doped out on a mix of heroin, cocaine, rophynol, and ketamine, murdered fellow club kid Angel Melendez. The nightclub was a sewer. How the hell would he know what the Limelight was like? Few people know the evolution of NYC nightlife better than Peter Gatien, the one-time nightclub impresario who at his '90s peak ran four Manhattan mega-clubs: Club USA, a Blade Runner-meets . None of it would. In journalist Frank Owens 2003 book, Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture, he writes that Daniel was whisked out of the city to a secret location by Paul Auster after the Melendez murder, and that at some point his father arranged a meeting between Daniel and DA Morgenthau. Peter Gatien was born on 8 August, 1952 in Cornwall, Canada. You dont see it anymore.. Theo Fleury , stoned NYRanger , probably dragged his butt in the front door and all the A Listers made the club a wannabee place to be and all of that mix a DEA place to pounce on ! At least, he was the wisest one in the lobby bar of the Bowery Hotel one Saturday afternoon in mid-March. There still isnt a definitive answer on why Gatien left Circa, the John Street megaclub that he was hired to forge into Torontos answer to Limelight. You couldnt match his creativity or foresight if your life depended on it. Alas, all the stars had since moved on from the Limelight and the club was sputtering. It hurts. Between sips, he spoke with some disappointment about his return to New York, which had blackened both his eyes and then bounced him nearly two decades ago like a drunk from a bar. The place drew a hell of a mass from the jump. Peter Gatien (born August 8, 1952) is a Canadian club owner and party promoter. I dont want to come across as woe is me, says Gatien. He married his high school sweetheart and had two daughters, but America and disco beckoned. Alig died of a heroin overdose on Christmas Eve 2020. Amazon has also bought a memoir written by Gatien that covers his rise and fall as a club owner, which editor Laura Van Der Veer and Little A will publish in the fall of 2020. But its boring to complain about how New York is now boring. peter gatien wife. Today he splits his time between Toronto and New York City, enjoying a home life with his wife, Alessandra, his four children, and his two grandchildren. I dont even respond to the calls. It was 1990, I had just started making records but I was still this innocent, naive, almost Dickensian kid in the big city. He says that before the Nineties he wouldnt have even tried to enter the club but that by 88 or 89 it had really become a sad nightclub that no one even though about [it], which is why Michael Alig and Lord Michael were able to start their nights.. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 1999, for which he was sentenced to a fine of $1.6 million and a 60-day prison sentence, along with 5 years' probation. The pull of heroin is so strong., 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Vintage photos show the original influencers NYCs 90s Club Kids, Party Monster: Painting in prison kept me from killing myself, Club Kid killer getting hundreds in free gifts, glassine packets of heroin in the apartment, murdered drug dealer Andre Angel Melendez, Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig, Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture,. Whatever else you may say about Mr. Gatien, who is 68, he never aimed small. They possess one young child. Arty outsiders and fashion iconoclasts favoring lip piercings and pancake makeup reframed dance-floor revelry as an art movement of sorts a swirling blend of techno music, Carnival-level costumery and, yes, drugs (particularly Ecstasy). The gilded Bonfire of the Vanities New York was over. His first business venture was a jeans store in his home town, which he opened with a $13,000 settlement after he lost an eye in a baseball accident. He made millions, but ended up broke following a series of legal battles, including investigations that attempted to link Gatien to the sale of party drugs in his clubs (the case was later dropped, but he was left with hefty legal fees), and a tax conviction that led to his deportation from the U.S. and brought him to Toronto in 2003. I think [the Auster family] sent [Daniel] away after that and nobody saw him for a long time.. It was. I hear he lives in Toronto. We were using crystal meth and we were on ketamine and Rohypnol and cocaine . My whole thing was always that to try to get an eclectic crowd in the place, you need a gay presence, he says. Known as Manhattan's king of clubs, Canadian Peter Gatien was the man who . Who is Eric Schwerin? But, with the exception of marijuana, the drugs were mentally-damaging in the long run (esp LSD) and continued use resulted in the new ages inability to form a stable society as it became vulnerable to (even inadvertently promoting through libertarianism) the rise of fascism under Giuliani, Gatiens arch nemesis Note that, despite the Jewish Left of the revolution, the prosecutors who failed to jail Gatien were all Jewish: a foreshadowing of the Koch Bros implementation of Ayn Randian Neo-nazism as the Tea Party, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc1G1KyI1cc. The coronavirus had claimed its first New Yorker that morning and the usually jumping East Village bote was barren. And then the tax man got him. The collaboration with Limelight owner Peter Gatien debuted with the reopening of the iconic venue in 1998, just months after the nightlife impresario was acquitted on charges of running a drug-dealing empire within his clubs. Over the years, there were attempts to break into boutique hotels, and write an Entourage-esque series about a 1990s club kingpin. Riggs told the judge at his sentencing that, What I am certain is that all of us involved, myself, Michael Alig, Daniel Auster and Angel Melendez, are victims of the same hideous evil, whose name is drugs.. There had been a sense that the city was ungovernable, says Fred Siegel, a Giuliani biographer who helped author his Quality of Life speech in 1994. The Club King, by Peter Gatien, Little A, 8.99 "I f you were there, too, you know the truth. In 1978, he opened another Limelight, in Atlanta, Georgia, that would come to be known as the Studio 54 of the South. In a Tiger King-style flourish, Gatien built an enclosure beneath the glass dance floor and stocked it with a live panther. Thoughts flash in your mind of incredible nights here, whether it was Jay-Z, or Junior Vasquez, or the thousands of people inside and outside, waiting in line, said Peter Gatien, the nightclub impresario who lorded over the 1990s club scene in New York City. He was prosecuted in what became a witch hunt and huge failure on behalf of the us federal system and despite being cleared of charges was spitefully deported for a minor tax issue. I remember he really did terrorize his stepmother. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited. , money, salary, income, and assets. Paulalsowrote a character seemingly based on Daniel intohis 2004 novel, Oracle Night. The story is narrated by a writer called Trause an anagram of the name Auster who has a drug-addicted son who terrorizes his stepmother. Undercover cops started hitting The Limelight, trying to buy drugs. Was it looser than anywhere else in town? He was very low on the totem pole. They brought out the worst in each other, especially when it came to drugs. The club veteran was unceremoniously shipped to the city in 2003 after serving time for state-sales-tax evasion in the United States, the. His splashy 2007 return to the nightclub business a four-story club in Toronto called Circa, with a campy space-age theme lasted only a year. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. I lived the NY scene in the 90s and Peter WAS the NY scene. However, because he is part Native Canadian, Gatien has since been able to visit the United States again. Then, on the eve of their performance, Macho Man hit the airwaves. Meanwhile, you werent a top-tier rapper if you didnt perform at the perpetually packed venue.. Interview: Notorious Club Owner Peter Gatien Talks About The "Limelight" Documentary & Hip-Hop's Best Party Ever. In Times Square was Club USA, an adult playground complete with a slide and interior design by Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. No, Seigel says. Peter Gatien's income source is mostly from being a successful . The Club King, his slick new memoir out this month, chronicles Gatiens rise from a working-class kid in a sulfurous paper mill town in Ontario. Mr. Gatien, who was then living with Alessandra and his two daughters in a handsome townhouse on East 63rd Street, off Fifth Avenue, made a point of staying clean during work hours. Ralph Gengo and retired Det. And they played for free, Mr. Gatien said, because, well, it was Sunday night at the Tunnel. Under the guise of improving New York City's "quality of life," the club scene was targetedand Peter Gatien's empire became a major focus of the administration. Mr. Gatien was acquitted of his drug-racketeering and conspiracy charge in 1998 but was deported to Canada after pleading guilty to subsequent state tax-evasion charges. A third eye for spotting talent was honed early, too, as he recalls one of the first gigs he booked, an up and coming local group called Rush. (Though Gatien does admit it was flattering to be played by Dylan McDermott in Party Monster, the 2003 film depicting Aligs rise and fall). What came next to the club was not glitzy, but plenty kinetic. Angel was still trying to bite me and I wrapped a sweatshirt around my hand and I smashed into his face to try to push him down. Democracy Dies in Darkness. Grace Jones, Ron Galella, and Tanya Tucker at the . He was a child of privilege. The Limelight and the Palladium were seen as part of that un-governability, that this was a Wild West zone which you could do pretty much whatever you wanted the people who lived in proximity to those clubs wanted them out, Siegel says. The biggest gut punch of them all came in 2003, when Gatien was deported. He pleaded out to two months in Rikers. Downtime is spent kicking it with his eldest daughter, Jen Gatien, a filmmaker who lives downtown, or walking around Central Park. His story may get the Hollywood treatment too, with a script already in the works by Nicholas Pileggi best known for writing Goodfellas and Amazon Studios set to produce. Ten days after the murder, with the corpse decomposing in the bathtub, Alig chopped up Melendezs body and he and Riggs threw the torso in an Amana TV box into the Hudson River. We will update Peter Gatien's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible. As promoter Peter Gatien's publicist, Lynn was at the heart of the Club Kid scene and helped the community navigate the horrific 1996 "Club Kid Killing." . Daniels death was the final sad act in a dark life marked by chronic drug abuse and bookended by two tragic drug-related deaths the last one 26 years ago. Rather, hes got a tale to tell, one filled with fabulousness and tabloid phantasmagoria and it aint boring. Most clubs a year and a half, two years, and thats it.. A myth was always perpetuated about the Canadian expat losing it during a hockey game, but actually baseball was to blame. But the story of their vilified owner is still being written. He was harassed with regular raids and shutdowns until the mounting legal fees left him banjaxed. Along with goths, drag queens, rockers, leather boys and slumming socialites, the Limelight became the home to the 90s club kid moment. Gatiens contribution to culture thru his clubs is fantasy, his party people were far to fucked-up 24/7 to contribute anything to anybody I remember one time riding my bike up 6th ave; there was a taxi cab up the side of the wall of Limelight at a 45 deg angle I asked myself, how does this stuff happen? He eventually kicked the stuff, but credit card bills bearing proof of his binges were later aired out in court and didnt exactly help his case. Not to mention all the gadabouts who played and partied at his other joints, from Prince to Axl Rose. I told the DA that Daniel was involved and that [investigators from the DAs office] were hiding it and that I intended to call the kid during the trial in our defense. A documentary about Peter Gatien. The brutal nature of the killing Drano was used in some capacity and body parts washed up on Staten Island months later made it one of the decades most notorious crimes. With Funkmaster Flex wrangling talent, big names including Dr. Dre, Lil Kim, 50 Cent, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Nas and Snoop Dogg all played Sunday night at the Tunnel. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of . The club was located next to a 24-hour Kroger grocery store, which became known, affectionately, as "Disco Kroger." The Limelight was featured in The Slugger's Wife starring Rebecca De Mornay. But I also think Peter has mellowed out over the years. And yet, the Gatien story is a real black eye for New York. With his wife and youngest child he had since remarried, twice still in New York City, he was suddenly alone and back in Canada, where it all began. Peter Gatien Video Interview On 'Limelight,' Michael Alig, Angel Melendez | For full video, go to: http://bit.ly/2ESEvdMWhat did you think of the video? On April 15, Daniel was arrested andcharged with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of Ruby. These two party-promoting Michaels represented a shift in nightlife. At the time of Rubys death, he was living with his partner, Zuzan Smith, 25, who told police that Ruby was alert and awake when she left to go to work that day. The Fugitive Task Force on FBI: Most Wanted has gone after quite a list of bad guys, but with the February 14 episode, these agents investigate their most disturbing case yet and it leads to Remy Scott (Dylan McDermott) going undercover as a priest. [4], A 1996 federal investigation attempted but failed to link Gatien to the sales of party drugs,[5] especially ecstasy, in his clubs, but his acquittal in 1998 left him with huge legal fees. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images Gatien says he has no desire to be in touch with his former employee. Daniels father Paul reportedly had some connection to the Manhattan DA that led to a meeting where his son gave information on the killing, which may have helped him avoid more serious charges. Today he splits his time between Toronto and New York City, enjoying a home life with his wife, Alessandra, his four . Alessandra, Gatien's third wife, is his dispositional antithesisan elegant, gregarious film producer fifteen years his junior, outfitted tonight in Paltrow-casual style, with jeans and a black. Daniels role in the grisly slaying at Apartment 3K at the Riverbank West complex, however, has always been shrouded in mystery and little-known to the public. If theres any truth to the old William Blake line about the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom, then Peter Gatien may be the wisest cat in New York. And when everybody was leaving the place, there were so many smiles. He remembers thinking, he said, that everyone who had been at the club was going to have sex that night. Peter Frampton. Canadian club owner and party promoter (born 1952), "Live and Learn (CEO Interviews): Peter Gatien", "Limelight: Doc tells outlandish tale of Canadian's rise and fall in NYC", "Jen Gatien Dives Into the Limelight (Again)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Gatien&oldid=1142665884, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Alessandra Gatien, former Adrien Gatien, Sheila Gatien, Gatien and the histories of his clubs are discussed at length in the book, Gatien is a prominent character in two books about, Gatien's daughter, Jen Gatien, produced the documentary. Brafman was so sure of the cracks in case that he didnt bother calling any witnesses for the defense. Police still dont know how Ruby ingested the drugs although Daniel admitted he had glassine packets of heroin in the apartment, prosecutors said in court. In a hectic nine-month span in 1992, Gatien grew his empire acquiring leases on the faded Palladium and Tunnel, and erecting Club USA packed em in and raked the bucks by the millions. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty Images. continuing the post below, the influential sub-cultures in NY were first the Diggers, early squatters who helped fellow travelers (1960s), and then the real squatters (punks and homesteaders), the yippies (who recently lost out to developers), and of course the bohemians who created the abstract foundation that we rest on no doubt, there was drug use and drug use probably accelerated the development of the abstract in the face of educational oligarchy and its anti-abstract hegelianism (thesis, antithesis, synthesis maintained in powerful abuse centers called schools and universities) The left coast established psychedelica with music such as Vanilla Fudge, the Chocolate Watch Band, and, of course, the Grateful Dead. Everything was in a state of disarray, Alig said. Benjamin Brafman Chloe Sevigny Circa James St. James madonna Michael Alig Michael Musto People Peter Gatien Stephen Katmarian The New York Times Toronto. Gatien was born in Cornwall, Ontario, the third of five brothers. His wife is Alessandra Gatien (m. 1994), Adrienne Gatien (m. 1984-1994), Sheila Gatien (m. 1972-1978) Peter Gatien Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022.