Interview · moment 4 of 15
The Super Clubs Era: Palladium, Limelight, and the Tunnel
from Antiseptic New York · #9
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
3 minGuest
Ralph and Tim discuss New York's massive nightclub scene of the 80s-90s (Palladium, Limelight, the Tunnel), wild stories including a herpes transmission on a rising dance floor, and how those buildings are now a dorm and a gym/pizza restaurant.
- 7:07New York had multiple legendary super clubs: Palladium Club USA, Limelight, and the Tunnel, each holding five to seven thousand people.
- 7:23Tim describes the cavernous winding rooms in Palladium and Limelight where people could disappear and do whatever they wanted.
- 7:39A mechanical house would descend onto the dance floor at Palladium, and one of his friends contracted herpes from a girl inside it as it was lifting back up.
- 7:56Palladium is now an NYU dormitory.
- 8:17Limelight is now a gym and restaurant selling Grimaldi's pizza, though some of the original structure remains.
- 8:31Gay nightlife was more fun in that era because at least people were living, even if they were dying of AIDS from sleeping with ten people.
- 9:00Now everyone's parents say they're supportive, but that lacks the excitement of the old days.
- 9:19The super club era spanned the seventies and eighties, overlapping with the Reagan era and cocaine cowboys.
- 9:38Tim's father was wealthy in real estate and owned a condo in Miami during the 1980s drug era depicted in Cocaine Cowboys.
- 9:57Tim witnessed the Miami drug scene firsthand as a kid, including cigarette boats that his family used to ride every week.
LimelightPalladium Club USACocaine CowboysGrimaldi's