All Rights reserved. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. Over the years, there were attempts to break into boutique hotels, and write an Entourage-esque series about a 1990s club kingpin. Bolton comedy star Peter Kay took a three-year break from the limelight due to "personal reasons" in 2017, along with his wife, Susan Gargan and their three children. Peter Gatien (born August 14, 1952) is a Canadian club owner and party promoter. This all happened right after I said I was going to subpoena the kid, McMahon said. I had subpoenaed him, McMahon said. Turns out she was the daughter of the infamous club impresario who had been deported to his hometown of Canada four years prior. He is best known as the former owner of several prominent New York City nightclubs, including Club USA, The Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel. After that, he turned a former country western bar into a rock club called Aardvark and booked the band Rush to perform. Discover Peter Gatien's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. The owner of three of Manhattans largest nightclubs was accused yesterday of turning two of them the Limelight and the Tunnel into virtual drug supermarkets, The New York Times reported on May 16, 1996, peddling the drug known as Ecstasy to a clientele made up largely of college students and teen-agers., Mr. Gatien does not deny the Ecstasy use in his clubs; the drug was everywhere in the 90s nightlife, he said. And along came Rudy. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Daniel was just whisked away, Fernandez said. Cancel anytime. A memoir, The Club King, was published on April 1. Seriously, at a 45 deg angle up the side of a gothic church! 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. Thats whats missing now that raw energy. After many years in the wilderness of Toronto and a short-lived and somewhat successful stint overseeing a club there Gatien was allowed to return to New York. Gatien, 68, once the undisputed king of nightlife in the city known for excess, was dressed casually in a car coat, hoodie, and blue jeans, with New Balances on his feet and chunky white . Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. They were going after Gatien as if he were Al Capone., (Gatien was acquitted of drug-racketeering and conspiracy charges in 1998 but was deported to Canada in 2003 after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges.). 14A. (He was always uncool, Gatien says of the current commander in chief, with a dyspeptic smile.) Marks family hires a lawyer for him who used to work in the DAs office, and he is eventually exonerated. ( 1952-08-08) August 8, 1952 (age 70) Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. [citation needed], Gatien produced the film A Bronx Tale (1993), starring Robert De Niro,[3] after having produced it as a one-man play starring Chazz Palminteri. Genealogy for Marie Solne "Sarah" Bellhumuer/Belmer (Gatien) (1827 - 1907) family tree on Geni, with over 240 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. The media glare blew up the spot. Pedro Almodovar. 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. A documentary on former New York City club owner Peter Gatien. Family Medical Centers - San Pablo Jorge B. Caballero DO John Muenz MD Tina M. Voisin APRN Katherine Hamilton MSN, APRN, FNP-C, ENP-C Family Medical Centers - Middleburg 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. EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios has set Alfonso Gomez-Rejon to direct Limelight, a feature being written by Nick Pileggi & J.J. Sacha about the reign and fall of Peter Gatien, the 1990s king of Gotha Ralph Gengo and retired Det. The prosecutors willingness to fish out of the gutter any old scoundrel willing to sing in tune ultimately backfired. Smith did not return repeated calls from The Post. But, according to Gengo, Morgenthaus office in Manhattan took over the case and Gengo and Tomis had to fight to be kept on as investigators. He is 71 years old. Gatien was born in Cornwall, Ontario, the third of five brothers. 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. 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. I feel like the baby was the final victim of that Club Kids and drugs era, Ramon Fernandez said. Peter Gatien created, owned, and operated seminal nightclubs over the span of five decades. He is a member of famous with the age 70 years old group. But I also think Peter has mellowed out over the years. And yet, the Gatien story is a real black eye for New York. Was it looser than it should have been? Mr. Gatien said. Deep in my heart I thought that the way the government conducted itself during that trial was offensive. Still, he says, it took away a chunk of Peters life.. Consider his compatriots: Studio 54s Ian Schrager was pardoned for his tax evasion by Obama and is now a hotel magnate. 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. So, how much is Peter Gatien worth at the age of 70 years old? Next to the $12 million in real estate and his three Limelight nightclubs, Peter Gatien says his biggest asset probably has been his naivete. 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. Democracy Dies in Darkness. The Club King, by Peter Gatien, Little A, 8.99 "I f you were there, too, you know the truth. Peter Gatien's net worth Photo credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images, Main dance floor with mezzanine slide at Club USA, 1992. One night, Gatien claims, one pestered a busboy so much, the worker finally sold him a joint just to shut him up. After spending 17 years being shuttled between state penitentiaries, followed by nearly three years. He was harassed with regular raids and shutdowns until the mounting legal fees left him banjaxed. The Post attacked me like I was friggin John Gotti or worse. Known as Manhattan's king of clubs, Canadian Peter Gatien was the man who . 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 ! Undercover cops started hitting The Limelight, trying to buy drugs. (They love Giuliani on Staten Island). Peter Gatien on nightlife's survival and the dangers of political overreach The infamous Canadian nightclub owner's biography chronicles the highs and lows of his New York days, from the. The city was such a smoldering pile of rubble then that he was able to purchase the abandoned Church of the Holy Communion in Chelsea for just $1.6 million. The CSI NY franchise had lots of material here ! McMahon added that he had done some digging that proved to him Daniels novelist father had some influence with Morgenthau. I like being anonymous, Mr. Gatien said. Peter Gatien arrived in Toronto as an outcast criminal. As Datwon Thomas, the editor of Vibe, wrote in 2018: You couldnt go to the notoriously badass function that took place on Sunday nights if you were faint of heart. The club veteran was unceremoniously shipped to the city in 2003 after serving time for state-sales-tax evasion in the United States, the. Gatien came into the crosshairs of both Morgenthau and then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who knew of the drug activity at Gatiens clubs and who saw him as a big fish that needed to be caught as Giuliani tried to clean up New York City. Indeed, the killer club kid gets about as much ink in Gatiens book as the disco panther from Georgia. Benjamin Brafman Chloe Sevigny Circa James St. James madonna Michael Alig Michael Musto People Peter Gatien Stephen Katmarian The New York Times Toronto. In addition, he was later arrested on tax evasion charges after a series of club raids; he was acquitted of most of the charges. Circa was forced into bankruptcy and closed in March 2010.[10]. The Limelight lived up to its . Grace Jones, Ron Galella, and Tanya Tucker at the . 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. He is best known as the former owner of several prominent New York City nightclubs, including Club USA, The Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel. New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. Tom Comis, who worked in the detective bureau at the 122 Precinct in Staten Island, were assigned to the case when the box containing Melendezs armless and legless torso washed up on the shores of Staten Island. Bettmann/CORBIS Alig's arrest, conviction and sentencing took place amid Morgenthau's. Kanye West and 'wife' Bianca Censori . The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time They were doing ecstasy and free-basing cocaine and there was a lot of GHB and ketamine around.. God bless you and your family xo. Peter Gatien (born August 14, 1952) is a Canadian club owner and party promoter. Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty Images. 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 documentary about Peter Gatien. There was nothing left, save for the $500 in his pocket given to him by his attorney. As a result there was no trial and no call for Daniel to testify. Gatien relocated to Toronto, where he opened a 55,000-square-foot (5,100m) entertainment venue, Circa. Sex, Drugs, and the Glory Days of NYC Nightlife: Peter Gatien Looks Back 01 April 2020 by Shawn McCreesh Rolling Stone If there's 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. Gatien says he has no desire to be in touch with his former employee. Couldnt interview him yourself? He was Facebook before there was a Facebook! The Tunnel was home to the 90s club kids. Mr. Gatien, too, no longer looks quite so swashbuckling, his razor cheekbones now softer, his eye patch (worn since childhood, after he lost an eye in a baseball game in which a broomstick was being used as a bat) now replaced by dark glasses. Thats like an eternity in the nightclub business. In 1983, Gatien relocated to New York to open another Limelight club, and his brother Maurice was given the reins of the Atlanta club. He writes about the night Biggie died, when Funkmaster Flex played Hypnotize before a crowd of 2,000, crying silently. However, because he is part Native Canadian, Gatien has since been able to visit the United States again. The second ever electronic music performance I had was at Limelight, Moby tells Rolling Stone. 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. They took everything from him and also removed him from the country. Its a young mans game, he says. The one-eyed club impresario is back in the city he once called home and ready to tell his story. But they both have featured young male characters who appear to be thinly-veiled versions of Daniel in their novels. The culture that made New York work, Gatien says, thats what the clubs were. As part of his new Quality of Life initiative, Giuliani went after hot dog vendors, buskers, jaywalkers, street artists and squeegee men. Gatien was a mixologist of the nocturnal rank and . Along with goths, drag queens, rockers, leather boys and slumming socialites, the Limelight became the home to the 90s club kid moment. The stunt prompted the ire of a local animal rights organization, but the buzz also lured the likes of Rod Stewart and Andy Warhol, he writes. The Feds finally nabbed him for income-tax evasion in 1999 for failing to report $1 million in club earnings,. Once upon a time, before Twitter, Tinder, and Tik-Tok before blogs and bottle service, even culture was born in nightclubs. The Tunnel was lionized as raps lost city of Atlantis in the 2016 documentary The Hip-Hop Nucleus., And a 2011 documentary, Limelight, offered a kaleidoscopic look back to that sordid netherworld, but Mr. Gatien was not exactly effusive in the film. It was a brisk Wednesday in early March, a few days before the city shut down because of the new coronavirus, and Mr. Gatien was at La Colombe, a cafe inside the brick warehouse that once housed the Tunnel, the massive nightclub on West 27th Street that is now celebrated as a crucible of hip-hop. The club also served as a location for Hal Ashby's film The Slugger's Wife (1985), . 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. Lik. But he eventually succumbed to the temptation and business pressures. If you only read The New York Post from 1996 to 2000, then Im a villain, he said. 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. Everybody was dancing, Mr. Gatien said. Times change. The DA wanted to get Gatien and they wanted Alig to help them do that, said Ramon Fernandez, director of the documentary, Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig. They didnt care about this [Hispanic] Angel Melendez. (Though he did return a call via an apparent pocket dial and could be heard for seven minutes discussing with a female aide a coronavirus related opportunity.). His Queen West rent is a very modest $3,000 per month, paid largely by friends and family. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time 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. It didnt matter that, by the time it happened, Alig had long since been fired by Gatien. 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. 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. The Tunnel, too, served as a clubhouse for a marginalized population in need of one, he said. 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. He was a child of privilege. He is greatest referred to as the previous proprietor of a Photo by Steve Eichner) New York City after dark in the '90s was an ecstatic fever dream fueled by club kids' outrageous fantasies, and as house photographer for Peter Gatien's four iconic . St. James chronicled Aligs rise and fall as King of the Club Kids in his book, Disco Bloodbath, which was the basis for the 2003 film Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin. Peter Gatien at his short-lived London Limelight, in 1987. Gatien was also the executive producer of the film The Bronx Tale. Her entourage was always a nightmare She was trouble.. You really had to go out to find out what was happening.. I remember agonizing about paying Moby three hundred dollars, thinking Is this guy really worth it? Gatien says with a laugh. It all dovetailed with the rave music coming over from London at the time. I think Peter went through a time when he was justifiably bitter, says Brafman. He wasnt like Im gonna shoot everyone! [He shot] just the marquee, and then he kept walking. The whole [club kid] movement got tainted because of what he did, Gatien says. The cause of death was the same as what killed his 10-month-old infant, Ruby, last fall, sources said: an accidental drug overdose. And they played for free, Mr. Gatien said, because, well, it was Sunday night at the Tunnel. Once Operation Get Gatien kicked into third gear, he writes, DEA agents outfitted in get-ups from Patricia Fields boutique began prowling the Limelight in search of small-time drug deals. He is also ranked in the richest person list from Canada. For the past three years he has split his time between Toronto and New York, where he lives in Hells Kitchen. Alas, all the stars had since moved on from the Limelight and the club was sputtering. 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. In 1976, he read about a bankrupt nightclub in Florida known as Rumbottoms; the space became the first incarnation of The Limelight. Peter Gatien is a Businessperson. After his Miami Limelight disco burned to the ground in the late '70s, enigmatic club king Peter Gatien set his sights on Atlanta. But former friends of Daniel said they were shocked that his life ended in such a way, even knowing his dark past. The accident also resulted in a settlement from the school, which Gatien used in part to open a denim shop in 1971, which he called the Pant Loft. 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. 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). Fernandez interviewed dozens of people involved with the Melendez case, including Alig and the cops who found Melendezs body. Related Most notoriously there was the Limelight, a deconsecrated, gothic-style church on Sixth Avenue at 20th Street in Chelsea (now a SoulCycle knock-off). I had it for almost 20 years. He was very low on the totem pole. the guy seems to be living his life quietly in toronto like anyone else. Alig died of a heroin overdose on Christmas Eve 2020. Limelight, a documentary about the rise and fall of the one-time King of Clubs, opens tomorrow. So, how much is Peter Gatien worth at the age of 69 years old? He was so small back then, he mustve been 15 or 16. He opened his first club in the mill town of Cornwall, Ontario, when he was in his early 20s and managed to lure a young band from Toronto band by the name of Rush for its opening week, he says in the book. 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. 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. This is a man who, well, clearly you dont get it. Peter Gatien, who holds the lease on the John Street property, left Hingson Corp., his original backer, to find new sources of funding after the club failed to open in June, 2006. This is a celebrity in NYC that has done so much to shape music and a generation. Limelight Atlanta followed. 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." . These two party-promoting Michaels represented a shift in nightlife. The U.S. Attorneys office flipped a rogues gallery of Limelight regulars and small-time dealers, including a drugged out Alig, dangling freedom in exchange for damning testimony against Gatien. Then Donald Trump arrives, without a date but with two bodyguards. Moby describes the new scene: Everybody was accepted and at Limelight you would walk in and there were drag queens and muscle bound guys from Brooklyn and cute little ravers from F.I.T. I lived there legally for 35 years." Back in Toronto, Gatien replaced his trademark eye patch with wire-rimmed, dark blue shades to conceal a missing left eye lost . But people dont fight on Ecstasy, either, so its not like youre having blood baths like with people drinking too much tequila.. While he has entertained the idea of getting an investment group together and creating a boutique hotel, with the Limelight building as the lobby, he will never return to the nightclub business, he said. Just the raw energy, the exuberance, he said, sipping an iced tea. , money, salary, income, and assets. He pleaded guilty to state tax evasion in. The DAs office offered few details about the case when The Post asked about it last week. It is not known whether Ruby was his only child. On Tuesday, Daniel was reportedly taken off life support. Thats when we got that sinking feeling in our stomach.. Today he cringes at the idea, but the big cat roaming under dancers feet presaged his preternatural ability to drum up press and controversy an ability that would make him, but later destroy him. Jurors clearly rejected the testimony of a drug-dealing former club director and five other dealers who pleaded guilty to drug-conspiracy charges and agreed to testify against Mr. Gatien in return for leniency, The Times reported. View popular celebrities life details, birth signs and real ages. At 70 years old, Peter Gatien height not available right now. People didnt even have cellphones. 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. Peter Gatien's income source is mostly from being a successful . The New York Post back then was literally a newsletter for him, says Gatien. Its not as good as it used to be, I can tell you that right now, he says. Having just put out a tee shirt for my brand that boldly stated, "New York Needs Peter Gatien," I had a feeling it was most likely related. In Times Square was Club USA, an adult playground complete with a slide and interior design by Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. . 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. Its to be celebrated. Whatever else you may say about Mr. Gatien, who is 68, he never aimed small. Not to mention all the gadabouts who played and partied at his other joints, from Prince to Axl Rose. He is from Canada. Gatien produced the film A Bronx Tale (1993), starring Robert De Niro, after having produced it as a one-man play starring Chazz Palminteri. If everybody is dressed in Armani, its boring. 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. I fell in love with that building, he said. Thanks for contacting us. Robin Byrd. The biggest gut punch of them all came in 2003, when Gatien was deported. Gatien, a self-described lapsed Catholic, writes that when the church learned of his plans, the Episcopal bishop of New York gifted him with a three-word, worth its weight-in gold review: We are horrified.. Why the US is so concerned about what people do to have fun is beyond me. His schoolyard pals had been using a broken, jagged broomstick as a makeshift bat when it slipped from one kids and connected, like a javelin, with young Gatiens left eye. Just hours after he got bailed out of Rikers April 20 after being charged in the death of his baby daughter, Daniel Auster, the long-troubled son of novelist Paul Auster, was found unconscious on a subway platform in Brooklyn. Those were the days when the party never ended, and it was goddamn fabulous." So ends Peter Gatien's recounting of his prime years in the 1990s, as chronicled in his fluent recent memoir The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife.I was there, and it is the truth. Subscribe; Username; Sign In It hurts. A thriving downtown press corps had to go out seven nights a week to tell readers the who, what, when, where, and why of cool. 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. Structural Info Facts Filmography Known for movies It was the last of an era: predigital, pre-social media, he said. After an five-week trial, the jury cleared the Club King in just a few short hours. Portrayed over the years as a genius and a hustler, a megalomaniac and a Sphinx, he is looking forward to the chance to control the narrative for a change. Neither Paul nor Hustvedt have ever commented on Daniel publicly. In November, hed told police hed injected himself with heroin and taken a nap, only to wake and find his daughter unconscious and unresponsive. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. A 1996 federal investigation attempted but failed to link Gatien to the sales of party drugs, especially ecstasy, in his clubs, but his acquittal in 1998 left him with huge legal fees. Bill and Violet meet in the downtown art scene of the 1970s and 80s, and she helps Bill raise Mark, his son from a previous marriage. That business later allowed him to purchase a bar his first nightclub that he named the Aardvark, after the character in the Saturday morning cartoon The Ant and the Aardvark. They possess one young child. Jock Soto. True Legend on the arts and his era and all thes hypocrite mega stars that would indulge in his world and not come to his rescue when he was being victimized Well shame on all of you all. The man is an Ace, an absolute visionary! Born. I always got a lot of gratification standing in the back of the balcony, seeing 3,000 below waving their hands in the air., At Limelight, he added, we had people in sequins showing up alongside people in tuxedos coming from a dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [7] However, because of his partial Indigenous ancestry, Gatien has since been able to visit the United States again. The Village Voice called him a bit of a cold fish. New York magazine described him as a provincial money man who didnt make the scene, but made a fortune off it. Even his staff nicknamed him the Ghost., I dont know if its because Im a small-town Canadian kid, he said, but Im much more comfortable in the shadows.. He notes that, once he began to wear his signature black eye patch, he instantly became a member of a select fraternity that included James Joyce, Bazooka Joe, Snake Plissken, and David Bowies Ziggy Stardust. What came next to the club was not glitzy, but plenty kinetic. At his height in the 1990s, Gatien commanded a sprawling empire. Unlike Party Monster which focused on Limelight's infamous murderer Michael Alig Ms. Gatien's film focuses on her father's fall at the hands of Rudolph Giuliani's anti-drug (and . 2023. I think Peter brought a lot of culture and talent to this city., Even Siegel, the Mayors Quality of Life speechwriter, describes current New York as pretty bland. So maybe Gatien has a right to feel wronged by Giuliani, after all? Peter Gatien (born August 8, 1952) is a Canadian membership proprietor and get together promoter.