Walt Cassidy is still working up a sweat at Limelight — except now it’s on a treadmill.
Cassidy, 47, was one of the more well-known of the so-called “Club Kids,” whose flamboyant, drug-fueled, gender-bending style went mainstream in New York City in the ’90s. He documented the rise and fall of the city’s iconic scene in his new book, “New York: Club Kids” (Damiani, out now) through a selection of unseen photographs, personal archives and insider stories.
“It’s a love story to ’90s New York,” Cassidy tells The Post of the photos of scantily clad partygoers.
Before Instagram, before phone cameras and before clout was king, the Club Kids were New York’s original influencers, setting beauty and fashion trends and spending all day putting together their club looks for that evening.
“We were basically brand ambassadors for the clubs,” Cassidy says. “I liken it to the old Hollywood system where actors would be loyal to one studio.”
Cassidy and his friends were loyal to New York club king Peter Gatien, former owner of Club USA, the Limelight and Tunnel. Limelight still exists today in Chelsea, albeit now as a gym. Cassidy is, in fact, a card-carrying member.
Cassidy says that his group, which at one point included around 25 people, all lived together in a three-floor triplex in Gramercy before spreading out to the Hotel 17 and the Chelsea Hotel.
“It was an alternative culture that evolved out of the heaviness of the ’80s with AIDS, nuclear threats and conservative politics,” he says. “We needed to lighten up. We were self-obsessed creatives trying to make a living.”
Drugs were both the catalyst for the long nights that turned to early mornings, and the downfall of the scene, he says. What started with pot, acid and ecstasy evolved into cocaine, Special K and eventually heroin, which “ruined everything.”
“Some people got into freebasing and smoking crack and that’s when it all got really dirty and really dark and fell apart,” he says.
But the photos live on. And now, Cassidy hopes, books like his can help influence a new generation of self-obsessed creatives.
“It’s like [Gen Z] is in the same position we were coming out of the Reagan policies of the ’80s,” Cassidy says. “[I’m] seeing the same energy on the streets again. The creativity is there.”
Some of the images in the book show what the megaclubs used to look like — like Club USA’s huge slide that hung over the dance floor with VIP rooms designed by Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier, for example.
“Club USA was the peak,” Cassidy says. “The moment when club culture and street culture and fashion culture hit its stride. It was fun and exciting before Giuliani shut everything down.”
Still, despite Times Square going from grunge to glass tower, Cassidy is happy that some relics, like Limelight, remain in place.
“[Limelight] is a magical space, even as a gym,” Cassidy says. “Gyms are like the new nightclubs of New York. You used to walk around and see 100 clubs and now you see 100 gyms. It’s still gathering spaces for people to get together.”