![]() It attracted many heterosexual luminaries as well as such gay and bisexual men as Truman Capote, Roy Cohn, Salvador Dalí, Divine, Bob Fosse, Halston, Mick Jagger, Rick James, Elton John, Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint-Laurent, Francesco Scavullo, Valentino, and Andy Warhol.Īrtists who made live appearances included frequent patrons Grace Jones and Donna Summer as well as Sylvester, James Brown, Gloria Gaynor, and the Village People. Well-built bartenders and busboys dressed in gym shorts and sneakers added to the sexual energy of the music and crowd. Special effects included fluttering fabric flames, floating aluminum strips, neon wheels, strobe lights, and the legendary animated Man in the Moon with a Cocaine Spoon sculpture. At capacity, the club could accommodate 2,000 patrons with a 5,400 square-foot dance floor and 85-foot high ceilings. The club was known for its velvet rope door policy where Rubell hand selected guests ranging from unknowns to high-profile gay, bisexual, and straight celebrities. Among the design team were many gay men that included architect Scott Bromley and those who later died of AIDS: interior designer Ron Doud, sound designer Richard Long (also for the Paradise Garage), and graphic designer Gil Lesser (known for his award-winning poster for “Equus”). Studio 54 was transformed into a disco in six weeks with a modest investment of $400,000. They were inspired after visiting Le Jardin at 110 West 43rd Street (in the basement of the now-demolished Diplomat Hotel), a gay nightclub that became one of the first to blur the line between gay, bisexual, and straight spaces. Rubell and Schrager wanted to create a new nightclub that replicated the energy of New York’s gay clubs, which were more dance oriented and sexually charged. The two sold the business in 1980 and the club soon reopened operating until 1986, but without the glamour of its heyday.īy 1976, discomania was sweeping the nation with over 8,000 dance clubs throughout the country. Legendary nightclub Studio 54, the brainchild of Brooklyn-born Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, operated here during its first incarnation from April 1977 to February 1980. ![]() It became the Casino de Paris nightclub in 1933, the New Yorker Theater again in 1939 under the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration, and was a CBS television studio from 1942 to 1972. There was one production here with LGBT associations – Rainbow (1928), with singer/actor Libby Holman. Opened as the Gallo Opera House in 1927, it was foreclosed after the stock market crash in 1929, and became the New Yorker Theater.
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