The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife

by Peter Gatien

  Out of all the direct hits and irreparable damage that I took, the reversals of fortune, the nights in jails and INS holding cells, the loss of my business, my name being smeared in the media, the worst wound was getting deported. Losing America broke my heart.

  I’d been obsessed with the USA ever since I stared across the Saint Lawrence River and fantasized about the magic realm on the opposite shore. I got my green card and lived legally in America for over thirty years. I fought to keep my kids on US soil. For all intents and purposes I had become an American. I embodied the American Dream, became a success, raised a family, and made a home in the home of the brave.

  I could have survived sleeping on a concrete shelf for a bed and eating shitty prison food. I could have faced being pummeled by repeated legal proceedings. But getting exiled from the land that I loved killed a part of my soul.

  Nostalgia is a blade that cuts both ways. Thinking over former times, the Velvet Underground song “All Tomorrow’s Parties” forms a soundtrack for my memories. They are all bittersweet.

  Especially of late, I’ve come to believe that we have to return to the Dionysian nights when clubs were central to so many lives, the years of dance floors packed with crowds thousands strong, and remember the pure exhilaration and energy of the time. I’ve watched my younger children grow up in a very different world, one where social anxiety seems all-encompassing.

  We need to recall the days when we were golden.

  If I could go back to a single minute in my life, I’d take it standing on the balcony of Limelight, say, on some weekend night in the summer of 1995. During that period, hope rose in New York City and throughout the world. AIDS was no longer the death sentence that it had been. Magic Johnson had announced his HIV diagnosis at the end of 1991, and he went on to become the miracle man who gave us all optimism just by surviving.

  We had beat the monster plague in a standoff. Nightlife started to rebound. It’s hard to describe the waves of euphoria that rose off the floor when thousands of people danced to music that was loud and insane. My thoughts keep coming back to those high, fine, ecstatic moments.

  They were nights of epic parties, but maybe they were something more, too. Nightlife spurred blasts of creativity that could be seen from space. The scene gave birth to music, fashion, and social trends that wound up changing the way generations saw the world.

  People left my clubs and went on to rewarding careers. Names like Michele Hicks, Justin Theroux, Vin Diesel, and Chazz Palminteri might be most recognizable, but there were so many people who have built prominent lives in music, business, and entertainment. Most nightlife professionals nowadays are alumni of my clubs. Those kids went on to share a “next big thing” mentality that we fostered at the clubs.

  The heyday of the digital age changed everything. Before cell phones and Facebook and Instagram, before the web went worldwide, in order to find out what was happening everyone had to get up off the couch and physically present themselves in public. To discover what people were wearing, what they were listening to, what was hot and hip and cool, you had to get out and press the flesh.

  I’m haunted by the need to recreate that moment. When I sought to open a nightclub in Toronto, my old nemesis, Bob Gagne, erstwhile cowboy DEA agent, traveled to Canada and showed up to testify against me at a liquor-license review-board hearing. He arrived up north looking older but not wiser, and Ben Brafman sent him back home even older and more defeated than when he came. The new club, CiRCA, opened to massive crowds and then went on to win “Best New Venue” at the 2008 Club World Awards.

  Whatever Gagne and Germanowski and Giuliani have to say, I’m still proud. Millions of people cycled through my New York City clubs over the years. We packed them in, and we maintained a crime rate so low it was almost negligible, with no major calamities.

  I live in Toronto now, with Alessandra, able to spend time with my adult children and two beautiful grandchildren.

  I look around today and see nothing—no European party city, no casino bacchanal—that can rival the incredible groundbreaking clubs of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Perhaps I’m just an antiquated curmudgeon railing against “kids these days.” But I’ve been in the big-bottle clubs in Las Vegas and elsewhere, and they can’t compare with scenes I witnessed.

  A blackened shroud, a hand-me-down gown of rags and silks, a costume fit for one who sits and cries for all tomorrow’s parties . . . Like Lou Reed and Nico, I’m feeling elegiac for all the good times that will never be. They won’t come around like they did in the golden age. I was there, and if you were there, too, you know the truth. Those were the days when the party never ended, and it was goddamn fabulous.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and forever, my heartfelt love and deepest gratitude to my wife Alessandra, who stood by me always. To my children, Jennifer, Amanda, Hunter, and Xander, who likewise were loyal through thick and thin. To my delightful grandchildren: I am so happy to share life with you. To the memory of my parents, Lilianne and Bernard: Je vous aime et je vous honore.

  A very special shout-out goes to Benjamin Brafman, an incredible human being and brilliant lawyer whose compassion and dedication are boundless. Thank you for saving my life. Ben’s wife, Lynda Brafman, and his family were welcome sources of support during challenging times.

  My thanks and appreciation to Gil Reavill, who brought my words to life and made stories out of them, then helped me pull those stories together to make this book. My agents, Meg Thompson and Paul Bresnick, ushered the project through an adventuresome submission process. The team at Little A were Amazon warriors in their own right, led by Laura Van der Veer and including Emma Reh, Emily Freidenrich, Carmen Johnson, Merideth Mulroney, and Lucy Silag. Isaac Tobin created a great cover, summoning up a whole era. I have to re-mention Jen, my oldest child, for her business acumen, her blazing creativity as a film producer, and for getting the ball rolling on what eventually became The Club King.

  To all my close friends, staff, and teams throughout the decades: I am full of appreciation and thanks for your beautiful energy and creativity. Gratitude goes out to Alan Klinger and Susan Wagner; Ben Ashkenazy; A. J. Block; Dan Lauria; Frank, Janet, Sean, Liam, and Kieran Moorfield; Yee, Jack, and Maureen Moorfield; Mark Baker; Corey Baker; Jerry Levitan; Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter; Lupe Fiasco; Larrance Dopson; Dammo the Great; Funkmaster Flex; Big Sean; David Shiller; Sean “Diddy” Combs; DJ Whoo Kid; Craig Pettigrew; Anthony Macchio; Leonardo Lubrano; Orin Bristol; Dom Faccini; Gregory Homs; Chris and Nicole Reda; Carol Hayes; Fat Tony; Mark Murray; Ashley Macintyre; Steve Eichner; Eric Goode; Serge Becker; Howard Schaffer; Justo Artigas; Kenny Baird; Christina Visca; Victor Calderone; Ethan Brown; Paul Budnitz; Paul Morris; Scotty Taylor; Michael Musto; Patricia Field; James St. James; Walt Paper; Stephen Saban; Bruce Lynn; Sophia Lamar; Russell Brunelli; Tom Doody; Nancy Dubin; Brian Rouleau; Kitty Bundy; Merryl Spence; Nichole East; Katie Longmyer; Jules Kim; Catherine Miller; Dale Araten; Jay Carucci; John Simonetti; Carlyle Mills; Ray Trosa; Matthew Banks; Mona Scott-Young; Queen Latifah; Shakim Compere; Cara Lewis; Kevin Liles; Joie Manda; Pamela Britt; Sean Brophy; Kevin; Michael Kyser; Joey Horatio; Impala; Richard; Abby Araten; John DeRobbio; Monica Michaels; Tracy Cloherty; Dino Simcoe; Erich Conrad; Jeff Mills; Junior Vasquez; David Guetta; Tiësto; Danny Tenaglia; Stretch Armstrong; Carl Cox; Joie Arias; Johnny Dynell; Lady Bunny; Kenny Kenny; Flexx Chapparo; Big Carlos; Big Candy, Mona, Diamond, and all Tunnel security personnel; John Carmen; Christopher Makos; Tracey Choi; Chi Chi Valenti; Sterling Cox; Little Candy; Ike McNamara; Tracey Fischer; Huey Morgan; Brian “Fast” Leiser; Jane, Louise, Chris, and Ray Montgomery; Pat, Rob, Louie, and Mena Fisco; Susanne Bartsch; David Barton; Gabriele Rotello; Coleen Weinstein; Tony and Posie Fletcher; Jeffrey Hacker, David Rabin, Billy and Irv Sorin, Will Reagan, Michael Francis, Sol Strazullo, and Ashok Iyer; Sertaj and the crew; David Sage; Allen Roskoff; John Dembrowski; Les Levine; Bob Silbering; Ethan Geto; Michele de Milly; Abe Backenroth; Mark Frankel; Sid Davidoff; Warren
Pesetsky; Bob Bookman; and Jeff Gluck.

  Too many people have left us too soon. Rest in peace to Brian MacGuigan, Sid Levinson, Chris Lighty, Tom Buckley, Mark Berkley, Tony Bongiovani, Leigh Bowery, Fred Rothbell-Mista, Gerry Snyder, Big Kap, Claire O’Connor, Arthur Weinstein, Billy Uhler, Fred Levin, and Malcolm Kelso.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 1992 John Bentham

  Peter Gatien created, owned, and operated groundbreaking nightclubs over the span of four decades. In his early twenties, he opened his first club, the Aardvark, in his hometown of Cornwall, Ontario. He went on to helm an unbroken string of successful megaclubs, including Limelight in New York City, Atlanta, Miami, London, and Chicago, as well as Manhattan’s Palladium, Tunnel, and Club USA, and CiRCA in Toronto. Gatien was also the executive producer of the film A Bronx Tale. 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.