See Ya at What Gets Me Hot

The Club was located in an old theatre and TV studio. In 1927, when the building was just built it was the home of the "San Carlo Opera Company". It was then followed by theatres like "the New Yorker", "Casino the Paris", "Federal Music Theatre" to finally in 1943 become a TV studio of Columbia Broadcasting Co. (CBS). CBS used the place as a soundstage for radio and television and from this studio successful shows like the Johnny Carson show, Beat the clock and $64000 question were broadcasted. The CBS people called the place Studio 52, since it was their 52'nd studio (and it was not called Studio 53 as stated by many sources'). Because of the premises former use as a TV studio the name for the new club was first meant to be just the Studio, but since it was used to be called Studio 52 by CBS and it was located in W. 54'th Street someone came up with the name Studio 54. The choice wasn't hard - this WAS the name!!! CBS Studio 52 ticket Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager Many people had been interested in turning the old theatre into a nightclub.

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But it wasn't until the two (to become) owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, saw the place something really happened. They loved the place at once and only a week after they first saw it they had signed the lease. Both Steve and Ian had been working in the nightclub business before they managed to hit it off big time with "the Studio".

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They had also been in the restaurant business for a long time and they currently owned a club in Queens, called the Enchanted Garden. In the Enchanted Garden Steve and Ian had a very talented DJ playing, a guy who is the pioneer DJ - Nicky Siano. Nicky started playing at Steve and Ian's club in 1976 and about two weeks before they opened up Studio 54 they hired Nicky as one of the new clubs two resident DJ's. The other resident DJ was a guy called Richie Kaczor. Steve and Ian also had a third partner, Jack Dushey, who was a professional retailer and in real estate. He was the new club's financial backer. Ian and Steve had first met Jack in early 1976 when he held his kids Bar Mitzvah in their club - Enchanted Garden. The guys had started talking and they told Jack they wanted to open up a club in Manhattan. Jack, as the real estate man he was, said he was interested in being part of that. When Rubell and Schrager had found the location they approached Dushey again and he gave the guys a couple of hundred thousand dollars and said; "Take the money and I'll get 50% of the net profit." Demolition and construction work took about a year and by the time Studio 54 opened, some $600'000 - $700'000 had been spent to get the place ready to party. For the Premier night of the Studio 54 the guys hired this girl and party promoter named Carmen D'Alessio to invite the "right" people for the grand opening. Steve and Ian had met her at their former partner Maurice Brahms' club Infinity. Carmen got the job as the new clubs PR manager and she had also been working with Steve and Ian earlier at the Enchanted Garden. Time went closer and closer to the opening night, some 5000 invitations were out and people were working day and night to get the place ready in time... Then in April 26, 1977 - THE day was there. People were still working in the club when some of the invited people started gathering outside the club. And about half an hour late the club opened up its doors for the first time. There weren't much people entering at this "early" hour, but within a couple of hours the place was crowded and outside the doors it was chaos. Even people with invitations couldn't get in! Studio 54 - Dance floor Studio 54 - Dance floor The club was huge, about 100 meters long and 80 meters wide, but it still had its theatrical feel, not only by the spectacular people who went there, but also because of the balcony and stage was still there. In the balcony there were sitting areas with tables and beneath the balcony was the huge parquet dance floor with all its strobe-lit columns that descended from the ceiling and its pumping music. Around the dance floor there were silver banquettes and the mirrored diamond-shaped main bar was located under the balconies, close to the dance floor. Studio 54 - the Rubber Room At the top of the club, in the 3rd floor, overlooking both the balcony and the huge dance floor was the infamous Rubber room. The room had a High-Tec bar and was designed with thick rubber on the walls to be easily washed down with water and soap after all the sex and drugs going on up there. Some people used to refer to the Rubber room as "Upstairs", but there were actually more secret places above the Rubber room were more private sex took place. Those areas were the real "Upstairs" to the initiated. In the ceiling above the dance floor there were cat walks for the maintenance of the lightning. It's said that the owners used to spend a great deal of time up there doing drugs and having sex above the heads of the hundreds of dancing people beneath. In the basement was the room not anyone could enter - the VIP room. I [Discoguy] got a chance to talk to Paolo Miranda, who started working as Busboy and later Head Busboy in the club in July of 1977 and was there for 2 years. Paolo, or Paul-Michael as he was called back then, fills me in on the VIP lounge... "I wouldn't really call it a VIP lounge, it was the basement. There were wire chain link fences all around with all the supplies for special decorations behind them. There was an Elton John pinball machine down there and a few white plastic lawn chairs. But I was down there all the time. Also there was the 2-year anniversary party down there, full of lots of celebrities." Studio 54 DJ - Richie Kaczor Richie Kaczor was the DJ playing this opening night and the first song he played was "Devil's gun" by C.J. & Co.. Richie was also the DJ playing in the weekends and Nicky Siano played the second night and in the weeknights. Nicky couldn't play weekends at "the Studio" since he owned his own popular New York club - the Gallery and was playing there in the weekends. It was also Nicky who played the night of the famous Bianca Jagger birthday bash in May 1977, in which she rode into the club on a white horse led by a naked body-painted guy. What's surprising is that while a DJ like Larry Levan was well-known among the crowd of the Paradise Garage, not many people knew the names of the resident DJ's of Studio 54.

amanda lear-fabulous lover love me (liveshow)1980

Paolo adds about the DJ's: "Richie Kaczor was THE DJ during the time I worked there. He was truly amazing. He would blend a song for a good 10 minutes. It was seamless. You would never know the song changed. Now a days, they blend for about 10 to 30 seconds and not very good. I got really spoiled at 54." Nicky worked at Studio 54 for about half a year, then he actually got fired because he preferred to spend hours in the bathroom getting high on drugs instead of getting high on playing records in the DJ booth. This Nicky told me himself when I got the chance to speak to him, but for the record I also wanna tell that he stopped taking drugs many many years ago. Nicky also had so many memories from the Studio that it would take a whole book to tell it all, but when he played the famous Birthday bash for Bianca Jagger was probably his most precious memory. That night was really a blast, he told me.

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"Hustling at the door to get into Studio 54... Liza dancing on the floor and Bianca walking through the door". Mick Jackson, writer of "Blame it on the boogie", wrote the song "54th Street" in which he sings about a club in Manhattan, USA where they are dancing in a Studio on 54th Street... As said before, everything related to the club and the Studio 54 name was a big industry. You could even buy yourself a pair of Studio 54 Jeans. The stitching on the back pockets, which every brand try to find its own unique one, even said 54 in the studio's logo style.

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Studio 54 logo by Gilbert Lesser Man in the moon with his silver spoon The name and the special Studio 54 logo became well-known in no time all over the world. The brilliant logo was designed by a guy named Gilbert Lesser. Almost as famous at the logo was this sign of the "Man in the Moon" inhaling cocaine (???) from his silver spoon that was hanging on the wall in the club. Unfortunately inhaling coke and using other drugs was quite common in the club, but this wasn't something special for Studio 54. At this time drug abuse was kind of common in all clubs.

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Drug use was like a lifestyle back then. Probably all the money and all the clubs famous and regular guests attracted people selling them. Some of the regular guests at Studio 54 were people like Andy Warhol, the designer Halston, Diana Ross, Liza Minelli and lots and lots of others. Other people seen at the club were; Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Brooke Shields, Warren Beatty, Calvin Klein, Bianca & Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Madonna and Elton John. Not all of these famous people had to try to get in through the main entrance. No, there was actually a VIP entrance on the back side of the club, from 53'rd street. This was the entrance where the staff and the true VIP's got in. Studio 54 VIP ticket As so many Celeb's frequented the club, I had to ask Paolo, who actually had met most of them, if he had any comments on some of them. Paolo; "Every celebrity was extremely nice. All except Sylvester Stallone. He was on some sort of ego trip. He had body guards all around his banquet wearing bell bottom jeans with 'Rocky' embroidered on their ass. He didn't want to be bothered by anyone. Not even me, who was his busboy. He didn't want me in 'his' area cleaning up. Robin Williams was a hoot. I danced with Valerie Harper for half an hour, a sweet lady.

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Margaux Hemmingway gave me her plastic heart on Valentine's Day. She was there before the club opened and I got there late that night and there weren't any left. They were part of our costume that night so I had to have one, so she game me hers'. I saw a political daughter (I won't name names, but her family is mostly not around any more) wearing a white t-shirt and baseball cap, snorting cocaine. And I thought, if I had a camera right now, I'd make a million dollars selling the picture." Have you got any other special memories of some Celeb's? Paolo in 1979 "Elton John was there one Saturday night and tried to pick up Patrick Taylor, another busboy - who was straight, and I guess I was the next best thing. He asked me to go to his hotel with him, I said thank you as it was a Saturday night and only around 1am and told him I had to work all evening. About 5 minutes later, Michael Overington came over to me, tapped me on my shoulder and told me to go get my things because I was leaving with Elton John. I did and had a wonderful time. That's all I'll say about that evening. Liza Minelli cornered me in the employee dressing room and told me that one time she was in a limo going to do a concert at Madison Square Garden. She was drinking some champagne, and all of a sudden a disco version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' came on the radio. She said it made her furious and threw the glass of champagne against the window between the front and back of the limo. She then said she realized how much the public loved her mother to contemporize the song, she burst into tears and cried all the way to the concert." Many celeb's kept coming back to '54' and in an interview, August Darnell, cofounder of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and leader of Kid Creole and the Coconuts remembers: "We used to hang out at Studio 54 so much that we should have been paying rent. In England, now, they have all these rave parties, but when people say there's nothing like a rave, I say I saw all this in 1977 at Studio 54. I'd have to say my favorite club was Studio 54, it was so decadent and so exciting in that period to be part of something you knew was a world movement.

Amanda Lear - Enigma, Give a bit of mmm to me (1978 this is where she rides onstage on the motorcycle)

Amanda Lear - Diamonds (1980)

amanda lear-the queen of chinatown (liveshow)

The Club was located in an old theatre and TV studio. In 1927, when the building was just built it was the home of the "San Carlo Opera Company". It was then followed by theatres like "the New Yorker", "Casino the Paris", "Federal Music Theatre" to finally in 1943 become a TV studio of Columbia Broadcasting Co. (CBS). CBS used the place as a soundstage for radio and television and from this studio successful shows like the Johnny Carson show, Beat the clock and $64000 question were broadcasted. The CBS people called the place Studio 52, since it was their 52'nd studio (and it was not called Studio 53 as stated by many sources'). Because of the premises former use as a TV studio the name for the new club was first meant to be just the Studio, but since it was used to be called Studio 52 by CBS and it was located in W. 54'th Street someone came up with the name Studio 54. The choice wasn't hard - this WAS the name!!! CBS Studio 52 ticket Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager Many people had been interested in turning the old theatre into a nightclub. But it wasn't until the two (to become) owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, saw the place something really happened. They loved the place at once and only a week after they first saw it they had signed the lease. Both Steve and Ian had been working in the nightclub business before they managed to hit it off big time with "the Studio".