The club was said to be the most famous nightspot on the face of the earth and an important icon in disco era which set many standards for club life and music today.  It had it all: alcohol, sex, music, dance, and lights.  And was similar to a real-life theatre with a cast of characters selected for each night's grand performance party.   

 
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager 
 

Both were born and grew up in New York, they met in college in the 1960's and became good friends even though they were so different.  Rubell was hyper, loud, and always up for a party.  Schrager was cool, retiring, and business minded.  They started off small by opening a chain of steakhouses in the less popular part of the city in the early 70's.  They were in the restaurant business for a long time before Rubell realized they could make bigger profits if they concentrated more on alcohol sales.
 
Steve and Ian soon started their own club in Queens called The Enchanted Gardens.  In 1976 they rented a building that would make it big.  They decided to call it Studio 54 since the CBS station called the place Studio 53 because it was their 53rd studio.  Plus the club was on 54th street.
 
The Studio
 

The building was located on 254 West 54th Street, Manhattan, New York, just off Broadway.  It was built in 1927 to be the home of the "San Carlo Opera House".  It would also house theaters like the New Yorker, Casino de Paree, Palladium, Federal Music Theater, the world's greatest disco label - West End Records, and then the "mother of all nightclubs" Studio 54.
 
The Studio was about 100 meters long and about 80 meters wide with theatrical feet.  The balcony had sitting areas with tables, beneath it was a huge dance floor with strobe lights descending from the ceiling.  Around the dance floor were silver banquettes and the mirrored diamond shaped main bar was located under the balcony close to the dance floor.  In all there was two stages, two mezzanines, four bars, and a private VIP room in the basements of the club.  Hanging from the wall was the studio's "Man in the Moon" and at 11:00 every night it would lower over the dance floor and a large spoon would be raised up to his nose and light up the moon.

 
The Opening Night
 

For the club's opening night, Steve and Ian hired Charmen D' Alessio as the club's PR manager to invite the "right" people.  She sent out some 5,000 invitation for the first night and people were working nonstop to get the place ready on time.  The workers were still working in the club when people started gathering outside the club and within a couple hours the place was so crowded outside the doors that even the people with invitations couldn't get in.  About half an hour late on April 26, 1977 Studio 54 opened its doors for the first time.  Almost overnight, the club became "The" place to be.  
 
 The DJs and the Music  
Richie Kaczor, the main DJ, was the DJ playing on the opening night with the opening song being "Devil's Gun" by C.J. and Co.  He also played on the weekends.  Kaczor had a knack for discovering songs that encouraged everyone to have a good time.  He's the one who made "I Will Survive" a big hit.  Nicky Siano played the second night and on the weeknights.  He couldn't play weekends at the studio, because he played at his own club, the Gallery on 22nd street and later on 172 Mercer street.  He played at Rubell's and Schrager's old club the "Enchanted Gardens" in 1976 and was then hired again to spin for Studio 54 two weeks before it opened.  The studio got the best DJ's to play there: John "Jellybean" Benitez, Tom Moulton, Tony Humphries, and Tony Carrasco.
The DJs had the best sound system money could buy, built by the best people in the business, RLA.  The  equipment was comprised of six RLA "Waldorf" horn loaded/reflex main bass boxes, six RLA "Bertha/Levan" bass horns, four "2" tweeter arrays, two "Ultima" three-way full range boxes, and a RLA X-3000 DJ crossover.  
The Guests

Rubell, who passed half the night in the doorway of the Studio, and the doorman, Marc Beneke, ruled the door.  The guests were picked from their energy, their attitude, their looks, and even their shoes.  Rubell strove to find the perfect combination or “mixed salad” of blacks and whites, straight and gays, young and mid ages, and males and females.  He dubbed the people turned away “gray people” and was often rude to people saying things like “Go home and change” or just “You’re ugly”.  Gaining entrance became a spiritual quest for many people to become part of the “beautiful crowd”. 
Marc Beneke: The Studio's Dorman
They would do anything to get past the famous velvet robes to get in.  Grace Jones appeared naked many times, and one person tried climbing through the air vents and fell through the roof onto the dance floor below.  Soon people were even buying Studio 54 designer jeans to see if that would increase their chances of getting in.  The stitching on the back pocket even said  “54” in the Studio’s logo style.  Celebrity status did not guarantee entry.  Chic was turned away even though their songs were high on the DJ play list.  Also Cher, when not let in exclaimed “But I’m Cher!” and her reply “I know who you are!” Guests that were often seen at the club were:

Diana Ross               Elton John     

Ivana Trump             Salvador Dali   Andy Warhol           Truman Capote        

Christopher Reeves    Madonna                

Warren Betty          Richard  Gere      Mike Meyers            Michael Jackson

Reggie Jackson        Liza Minnelli 

Brook Shields                 Bianca Jagger           Halston                   Elizabeth Taylor Jerry Hall               Calvein Klein

Donald Trump         Mick Jagger Margaux Hemingway                        

 

 
Rubell and Schrager gave their friends lots of gifts and parties to ensure that they would keep coming and spending their money.  For Bianca Jagger’s 30th birthday a costumed production number was put on by the staff of the club and professional dancers.  While this was going on Bianca came riding out onto the stage atop a white horse led by a naked body-painted guy.  When Rubell and Schrager didn't know what to get Andy Warhol for his birthday, they stuffed a garbage can full of dollar bills and gave it to him.

The Busts
There were two IRS raids on the club that would end the 33 months that the club was open for.  The first was in December 1978, Rubell bragged too many times about how much drugs the club was taking in and federal agents armed with guns and a search warrant raided the premises but no one was arrested.    

The second one was the killer.  In December 1979, fifty IRS agents busted in the Studio after being tipped off by a former employee and an article in the Nov. 12, 1979 issue of New York Magazine.  Schrager was arrested for possession of cocaine and evolvement with the traffic of drugs, and both were charged with tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy.  Garbage bags full of cash were stuffed into the insulation or just lying around.  Schrager had wrote down every gift ever given to a celebrity, even if it was drugs.  They hired Roy Cohn to defend them, but were still sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison and fined 20,000 each for tax evasion.  
On Feb 3 and 4, 1980, after one all-night bash with Diana Ross, Reggie Jackson, Andy Warhol, and Richard Gere, they went to jail..  But after having turned in some of their ex-partners and competitors, that were involved in the tax scandal, they got their time cut down to 13 months.
The End of Studio 54
Just 28 days after Steve and Ian went to jail on Feb 1, 1980, the club's liquor license expired, and a new license would take 18 months to get.  This would pretty much ruin the club.  Paper claimed Sylvester Stallone was the one who had the last legal drink.  Then in March 1980, the club was closed.  On Nov. 28, 1980 Mark Fleischman bought the club for $4.75 million and reopened it on Sept. 15, 1981.  Steve and Ian were out of jail and were working in the club as consultants.  Fleischman ran the place for 4 years and in 1986 decided to close down because of problems with lawsuits and drugs.  But Steve and Ian had left before this happened to get into the hotel business, where they purchased and renovated the Executive Hotel, and were consultants in some night club projects.
 
The studio then became a strip club for a couple of years and when that closed, became a site for private parties and different clubs rented themselves in.  Today it is used as the Cabaret theater.  On July 25, 1989, at the age of 45, Steve Rubell died of AIDS-related complications from septic shock at Manhattan's Beth Israel Hospital.  Ian Schrager is still active in the hotel business and owns a chain of 5 Star Hotels all over the world called Ian Schrager Hotels.
In Studio 54's memory their was a book, Studio 54: Disco And The Culture Of The Night, and two movies released in 1998 trying to "capture" the disco days.  One was called "The Last Days of Disco" directed by Whit Stillman.  It was about Studio 54 in the late 70's and early 80's, and the people who hung out there.  The other movie (a Miramax film) was called just "54" and was the life story of the late Steve Rubell, played by Mike Myers, with a lot of attention on the Studio.

Movie and Cd cover

Arica Shepard

8th American History

Rossville Jr. High

Studio 54

May 2002

Bibliography