Tunnel

The story

The train tracks are still there, sunken into the floor, a ghost of the freight terminal this building once was. Tunnel took its name from the shape of that main room, rails and all, when it opened in 1986 at 220 Twelfth Avenue in Chelsea. Owned first by a real-estate developer and the founder of a blue-jeans company, it passed to party promoter Peter Gatien in 1992. Fifteen years of nights ended in 2001, undone by unpaid rent and Mayor Giuliani's quality-of-life campaign. The building now anchors the West Chelsea Historic District.