Roxy

Overview

A converted warehouse at 515 West 18th Street that lived three distinct lives, roller disco (1978–1982), an early downtown home of hip-hop culture (1982–1989), and a sixteen-year gay megaclub era (1990–2007) — a room central to three separate New York scenes.

The Roxy opened in 1978 as a roller disco in a former warehouse in what was then the industrial western fringe of Chelsea, founded by Steve Bauman, Richard Newhouse, and Steve Greenberg. In its first incarnation it earned comparisons to 'the Studio 54 of roller rinks,' drawing skaters, artists, and night owls while disco was still the dominant form. That phase ended by 1982, when the room passed through a critical reinvention at the hands of Ruza Blue, a British émigré known as Kool Lady Blue, who had been running a hip-hop night at Club Negril in the East Village. Starting June 18, 1982, Blue's 'Wheels of Steel' Friday nights transformed the rink floor into the first sustained multi-racial, multi-cultural hip-hop club downtown, where South Bronx b-boys and Harlem graffiti artists partied alongside arty punks for the first time in a nightclub setting. Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Mixer D.ST, Afrika Islam, Jazzy Jay, Grand Wizard Theodore, DJ Red Alert, and Charlie Chase presided from an elevated platform in the center of the floor; Rock Steady Crew competed in b-boy battles; Dondi White, Futura 2000, and Phase 2 painted graffiti murals on the walls; Fab 5 Freddy emceed. The 1984 film Beat Street filmed its central breakdancing battle (NYC Breakers versus Rock Steady Crew) on that floor, cementing the room in the documentary record of hip-hop's emergence. Blue's run ended in 1983; under subsequent management the room briefly rebranded as '1018' (after its cross-streets at 10th Avenue and 18th Street) before the New York City Office of Midtown Enforcement shuttered it in 1989 on allegations of underage drinking, drug sales, and violence. Gene DiNino, who had acquired the venue in 1985 after running clubs in Syracuse since 1970, reopened it in February 1990 by bringing in promoters Lee Chappell, David Leigh, and DJ Larry Tee for a Saturday gay night called Locomotion. The timing was charged: New York's gay nightlife had been devastated by AIDS, and as drag superstar Lady Bunny told the New York Times, 'It became a beacon of celebration amid despair. People were ready to party again.' Locomotion ran for roughly two years; John Blair Promotions then took over the Saturday franchise, eventually rebranding it Roxy Saturdays and running it continuously until the club's final night in 2007, sixteen years in total. At its peak the weekly drew 1,800 to 2,200 attendees and operated until noon Sunday. The resident and headlining DJ roster across those years reads as a catalog of New York and circuit gay dance music: Junior Vasquez, Peter Rauhofer (a regular from 1999, specializing in tribal house), Victor Calderone, Hex Hector, Manny Lehman, Frankie Knuckles, Offer Nissim, Hector Fonseca, and David Guetta among many others. The room also hosted live performances by Madonna (twice: 1998 and 2005), Cher, Bette Midler, Beyoncé, Grace Jones, Boy George, and Elton John. Through the 1990s the Roxy's Saturday crowd came to define what observers called the 'Chelsea boy' aesthetic, a look and a social type that shaped the neighborhood's character as it became the center of gay Manhattan. The Roxy's final years saw a roller-disco night running weekly alongside the Saturday dance floor, a return to the room's origins. After briefly closing and reopening on December 2, 2006, the club held its closing party on the night of March 10, 2007, a fourteen-hour farewell that drew approximately 4,000 people and ran until noon the following day. The building at 515 West 18th Street was subsequently demolished; the site now holds Lantern House, a Thomas Heatherwick–designed luxury condominium that opened in 2021 straddling the High Line. A documentary, Roxy: The Last Dance, premiered on Logo in August 2008, interviewing owners, promoters, and regulars across all three eras.

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