Now shes baring only her soul

BY ROBERT POLNER | NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER

March 18, 2006

Noel Gomez poses at the New Life Fellowship Church on Queens Blvd. She is a former gentleman's club dancer who says she felt lost until she found the nondenominational New Life Fellowship Church. She is in the choir, is a part-time receptionist and met her husband there. (Newsday photo/ Alejandra Villa / March 9, 2006)

Goldfingers, a so-called gentlemen's club, is still in business on Queens Boulevard in nearby Rego Park, something of a holdover from a earlier period in the roadway's evolution. Noel Gomez, who used to twirl and strip atop the club's strobe-lit stage, hates it each time she drives past the enterprise, even though so much else on the boulevard is "changing and on the upswing."

Gomez, 40, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, dropped out of school and left a troubled home after the seventh grade. Later, as an adult living in the Elmhurst area, she followed in the stiletto-heeled footsteps of a roommate and began dancing in a G-string for a living.

"I didn't feel I could do anything else," she said.

And her career continued even after she had a baby in 1995.

"I didn't like it, but I continued to strip because of my daughter," Gomez said. "It was a fantastic living, but it became too risky."

Finally, she felt motivated to walk away from the job after a stalking incident. Two men began to follow her home from the club. She learned that one was a local teacher, and complained to the school.

Gomez said she soon gravitated to church, and at the nondenominational New Life Fellowship Church, she turned her life around.

The church is located a half-mile west of Goldfingers on Queens Boulevard in the landmark Elks Lodge, where Gomez now sings in a choir, works part-time as a receptionist, and met her husband, a guitar-strumming worship leader.

Her daughter is now 10.

"Thank God, and thank this church," said Gomez, who now calls nearby Glendale her home.