The Limelight (formerly Church of the Holy Communion)

The exterior architecture, showing a rose window, arched window, and vauled roof

As a teen in the 90s, I saw the grunge era of Nirvana, Reality Bites, and heroin give way to the club kids scene of techno, Kids, and Special K.  The hallways of my suburban high school teemed with teens wearing platform sneakers, baby-doll t-shirts, plastic children’s barrettes, and candy necklaces.  Growing up right outside Manhattan, I used to often hear about The Limelight.  The club, which was housed inside a former church, was where the Club Kids congregated.  It was constantly being shut down and reopened.  Eventually, in 1996, it became associated with the gruesome murder of Club Kid Angel Melendez.  A few years later, Hollywood made a movie about it called Party Monster, which starred Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green.  I moved away to L.A. for awhile, and when I came back, I took a job in Chelsea, not too far away from the club.  By 2003, it had been renamed Avalon, but it was still plagued with problems and eventually that too was shut down for good.

I recently walked by the club/church again, and saw its red doors flung open in broad daylight.  Shiny black-and-white checkered floors and a glitzy chandelier lured me in.  Inside was a fanciful spread of couture cupcakes, glam baby clothes, high heels that reached toward the heavens, and a million other trinkets that made my eyes dizzy with desire.  Everything was beautifully laid out, with neo-baroque flourishes and pops of hot pink.  I was captivated … and I felt sick.  I fled the building, now called The Limelight Marketplace, and saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk.  I thought of Jesus overturning the moneychangers’ tables at the temple in Jerusalem.  Is this what my Father’s home has turned into?  It felt as personal as if the Greek government had, in the wake of the economic crisis, seized my dad’s home and turned it into a den for tax-avoiding officials to play high-stakes poker while guzzling ouzo.

What happened in our culture that such a stunning example of a Gothic Revival church would become a building associated with murder and excess?  I did some digging around and discovered that before it came to secular use, The Limelight was called Church of the Holy Communion and that the church’s founder, Reverend William Muhlenberg, was influential in the advancement of New York’s education and medicine.

Exterior

Church: Church of the Holy Communion; now The Limelight Marketplace

Location: 20^th Street and 6th Avenue, New York, NY

Architect: Richard Upjohn

Built: 1844

Architectural style: Gothic Revival

History: Church of the Holy Communion was an Episcopal church financed by Anna Rogers and founded by her brother Reverend William Muhlenberg (1796-1877), an evangelical Catholic and the founder of the Episcopal Church School Movement.  Their great-grandfather, Henry Muhlenberg, is considered the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States.  William Muhlenberg believed strongly in the ties between education, religion, and morals.  Originally from Philadelphia, Muhlenberg came to New York in 1845, and after becoming rector at the church went on to establish the first order of Episcopal deaconesses in the United States, St. Luke’s Hospital (where he died), and a library that is now a wing of the New York Public Library.

The tower has a castle-like look to it.

The church went on to be an important place of social reform.  According to NYC AGO, “The Church of the Holy Communion was the first church in New York to have free pews. It was also one of the first to have weekly communion services. Its sisterhood of women church works, begun in 1852, opened new fields of church social ministry for women. In 1883, the church hosted the first convention of black Episcopal clergymen.”

Less than a hundred years later, its religious influence had clearly decreased.  In 1975, it became part of Calvary Church, where we went church hopping with Eric Metaxas, and St. George’s, where we went church hopping with Susan Isaacs, Donald Miller, and Sally Lloyd-Jones.  Shortly after that, it became know as Odyssey House, a drug rehabilitation center.  Ironically, in 1983 it became prime real-estate for drug dealing when The Limelight, Peter Gatien’s disco, opened and became the party spot for Club Kids like Amanda Lepore and Richie Rich.  The Limelight was closed in 1996, and in 2003 a similar club named Avalon existed in its place until 2007.  On May 7, 2010, the former church reopened once again, this time as the high-end retail space The Limelight Marketplace.

While the interior of the former church was brimming with high-end goods, outside sat someone who may have been homeless.

Exterior design: Although architect Richard Upjohn designed it to look like a medieval English parish church, as one can see from its tower, Rev. Muhlenberg requested certain design elements that were more in keeping with Roman Catholic churches, such as a transept.  (Gothic churches are typically laid out in a cross shape, and the transept would be the arms of a cross.)  Consequently, Church of the Holy Communion is the United States’ first asymmetrical Gothic Revival church.

Interior design: The free pews have now been replaced by kiosks.  The religious imagery of the stained-glass windows has been switched out for stained-glass store signage.

Holidays: Today’s annual Easter parade in New York grew out of the tradition of The Church of the Holy Communion’s parishioners carrying flowers to St. Luke’s Hospital on Easter.

Pop culture: The church is featured in contemporary Christian music singer Steve Taylor’s “This Disco (Used to be a Cute Cathedral).”

Nightlife: The Limelight; Avalon