On this day in New York · April 26, 1977
Studio 54 Opens Its Doors
A dead CBS broadcast studio on West 54th Street became the hardest door in America overnight, and New York spent three years fighting to get past the rope.
The facts
- Opened
- April 26, 1977, at 254 West 54th Street
- Founders
- Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager
- Building
- Opened in 1927 as the Gallo Opera House, later became CBS's Studio 52
- Closed
- Liquor license revoked February 28, 1980, club shut down the following month
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 on April 26, 1977, inside a building at 254 West 54th Street that had already been an opera house, a theater, and a CBS studio. The room legally held 2,500 people. On opening night about 4,000 showed up, and Rubell stood at the door himself, picking who got in by looks and mood rather than money or fame. Within a year the club was clearing about $7 million, built on a door policy so selective that even invited celebrities sometimes got left on the sidewalk. The same recklessness that made it famous brought it down fast, in a tax case that ended with both owners in prison.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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I turned away 1,400 people last Saturday.
Steve Rubell, in a November 1977 interview with New York magazine
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Studio 54 proved that rejection could be the whole business model, and every velvet rope in New York nightlife since has been chasing that same trick. Its collapse, an IRS raid, a tax evasion indictment, and a revoked liquor license, was just as fast as its rise, a reminder of how quickly this city can repossess a legend it built.
Sources
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