THE LIMELIGHT IS GOING RETAIL

THE Limelight — the notorious nightclub opened in 1983 in a deconsecrated Episcopalian church on Sixth Avenue and 20th Street — will reopen soon as a store. Jack Menashe, who owned nightclub Lounge in SoHo, is turning the long-vacant, 1849 Gothic Revival church into Limelight Marketplace with the help of designers James Mansour and Melisca Klisanin. Mansour told John Norwood of guestofaguest.com, “We’re taking a place that was a blight on the neighborhood for so long and turning it into a shopping haven.” Limelight was trouble from opening night, when a man costumed as Jesus carrying a large cross tried to get in. Long gone are the trannies, the drugged-up club kids and their pied piper, Michael Alig, who’s in prison for the 1996 murder of the venue’s resident dope dealer. After battling authorities over tax and drug charges, one-eyed club king Peter Gatien was deported to Canada.