Mr. Alig, who gained fame in the 1980s as a party promoter, was a tabloid celebrity who served 17 years in prison for manslaughter. …
Michael Alig, a longstanding tabloid fixture of New York City and a notorious promoter of its nightlife, died on Friday at his apartment in Washington Heights. He was 54.
The cause was an accidental heroin overdose, his mother, Elke Blair, said on Saturday.
Mr. Alig was known in New York City nightlife circles as a creative, canny promoter and as a pioneer of visual spectacle long before he became infamous.
He appeared on the cover of New York magazine in March 1988 under the headline “Club Kids.”
That article gave him and his followers both a name and a platform to open shock attacks upon American culture, such as during an appearance in 1993 on Phil Donahue’s daytime talk show.
The club kids were one set of nightlife fixtures in Manhattan who reacted to the libertine disco era that came before them. Afraid of the AIDS epidemic they’d grown up with, the club kids went out “looking very freaky so that nobody would have sex with you,” Mr. Alig said 30 years after the magazine article appeared.
according to The New York Times.
Mr. Melendez, who was also known as Angel, was missing for months
