September 3, 2001

By: Dan Kadison

The final Wigstock bash went out with a bang yesterday – featuring a performance by a “run-down” Lizzie Grubman impersonator.
“It’s a smashing tribute to Lizzie Grubman because she’s a cultural icon,” aid one of the event’s gender bending founders, Lady Bunny, playfully noting that the performer that played the p.r. princess had a “run-down feeling.”
She was referring to Grubman’s now –infamous incident in which she backed her Mercedes-Benz SUV into a crowd of people outside a Southampton nightclub July 7.
Daniel Alita, who uses the stage name “Gusty Winds,” conjured up a vision of Lizzie by donning a blonde wig, a black dress with transparent shrug, strappy black shoes, a faux diamond bracelet and oversized zebra-striped sunglasses. “I’m a 250-pound man in a wig. If I can take a joke, she can,” said Alita, a hotel manager originally from Suffolk County. “Do you really think I want to walk around with my roots showing?”
Wigstock performers treated the crowd to Lizzie jokes before Alita bounded onstage.
“It’s been so tragic, I gained 10 pounds,” he said before an SUV replica knocked him down. When Lady Bunny tried to help “Lizzie” up, out came a bloody prosthetic arm.
The lighthearted poke on Pier 54 was one of dozens of sights at Wigstock – which is closing down because it’s become too expensive.
“It’s much too fun,” said 42-year old “Amanda Deere,” a Bergen County man wearing a custom made, flame colored wig that matched his thigh high, 6-inch heeled boots. “It’s like Mardi Gras in New York.”

		MUCH A 'DO': A reveler vogues for the camera at yesterday's festivities. After 17 years of celebrating city cross-dressing, the fest's founders say financial woes are making this the last bash. photo: Mary Altaffer