AFTR/IMG · ROOM · CLUB-371 · CONF NEEDS REVIEW
Club 371
Overview
South Bronx multi-floor disco at 371 East 166th Street in Morrisania (owned by the transit-worker cooperative 'the Ten Good Guys') where DJ Hollywood and Eddie Cheba built the proto-rap MC style performing on separate floors, and where Sal Abbatiello first heard DJ Junebug and was inspired to open Disco Fever; the building has since burned down.
Club 371 occupied 371 East 166th Street in Morrisania, South Bronx, taking its name directly from the address. The club was owned by a group of transit workers calling themselves the Ten Good Guys, who had been running a two-floor disco on the premises. The Ten Good Guys brought in DJ Hollywood after witnessing his drawing power elsewhere in the Bronx, Hollywood had been performing since around 1975, starting at a club called A Bunch of Grapes, and the resulting arrangement was a two-floor operation: DJ Hollywood with his deejay Junebug occupied one floor while Eddie Cheba, MC and DJ, with his deejay EZ Gee and rapper Reggie Wells worked the other. Hollywood and Cheba were among the earliest practitioners of what would become the MC style in hip-hop: their patter and call-and-response over disco records predated and influenced the Bronx DJ culture that would codify rap as a distinct form. The success of Club 371 was such that the Ten Good Guys eventually expanded the space, adding a second section called 'the House of Glass.' It was at Club 371 that Sal Abbatiello (who would later open Disco Fever in the Bedford Park neighborhood) first heard DJ Junebug and was introduced to the rappers and DJs populating the Bronx circuit; Abbatiello later described the visit as a formative encounter on his path to opening Disco Fever. The building at 371 East 166th Street subsequently burned down and no longer stands; the site has been cited as part of the inspiration for 'Les Inferno' in the Netflix series The Get Down. The address is sometimes misreported as 371 East 138th Street; multiple independent sources confirm East 166th Street.
Oral histories & archival media
Archive plates
Plates fill in as scans clear rights
Sonic profile
Cultural role
DJs, promoters & people
DJ Hollywood
Resident DJ · Resident DJ; one of the originators of the MC style over disco records; performing at Club 371 by at least 1978. Not to be confused with the 1990s rapper of the same name.
Eddie Cheba
Resident DJ · MC and DJ; performed on a separate floor from Hollywood. One of the earliest Bronx MC stylists; his relationship with Hollywood at Club 371 is a documented founding-era encounter.
DJ Junebug
DJ · Hollywood's DJ at Club 371; heard there by Sal Abbatiello, inspiring him to open Disco Fever.
EZ Gee
DJ · Eddie Cheba's DJ at Club 371.
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