Studio 54

Overview

The Midtown disco where Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager turned a former opera house and CBS studio into a celebrity-driven, door-policed room, until their 1980 tax-evasion sentencing closed the original.

254 West 54th Street is a Beaux-Arts hall designed by Eugene De Rosa, built in 1927 as the Gallo Opera House, then the New Yorker Theatre, Casino de Paris, a WPA Federal Theatre, and a CBS radio and television studio from 1942 into the early 1970s. Syracuse University classmates Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager leased it in early 1977 and spent roughly $400,000 transforming the 85-foot-ceilinged hall in approximately six weeks, opening April 26, 1977. The design team—architect Scott Bromley, interiors by Ron Doud, sound by Richard Long & Associates, graphics by Gil Lesser—exploited the former opera house's flying rigs, 5,400-square-foot dancefloor, and theatrical ceiling for spectacle: a 30-by-40-foot cyclorama projected galaxies and sunrises; the 'Man in the Moon' with its neon coke-spoon (designed by Aero Graphics, Dean Janoff and Richie Williamson) descended from the rafters as the evening peaked; a dozen 16-foot light poles with flashing rigs required three operators nightly. Capacity was roughly 2,000. The former theater's balcony was retained; binoculars were provided for spectators above the floor. The DJ booth was principally held by Richie Kaczor, recruited from Hollywood Discotheque, who is credited by contemporaries with repeatedly playing Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' until the floor accepted it and made it a standard. Nicky Siano shared the early residency but was replaced within months; Siano later said Rubell wanted the club itself—not the DJ—to be the star. Rubell described the crowd he wanted as 'very, very, very bisexual'; accounts of the door describe a mix drawn from New York's gay clubs alongside the celebrities whose coverage sustained the room. The NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project describes it as 'a bastion of safety for members of the LGBTQ and drag communities at a time when homophobia was rampant.' Regular live performers included Sylvester, Grace Jones, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, the Village People, and James Brown. Rubell's velvet rope mixed chosen unknowns with celebrities—Warhol, Halston, Liza Minnelli, Truman Capote, Calvin Klein, Bianca Jagger (whose May 2, 1977 birthday party brought a white horse onto the floor). A December 1978 federal raid found cash stuffed into ceiling insulation; Rubell and Schrager pleaded guilty to tax evasion in November 1979, receiving 3.5-year sentences of which they served roughly 13 months. The closing party, 'The End of Modern-Day Gomorrah,' held February 2, 1980, had Diana Ross singing to the departing owners as the DJ closed with Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.' Mark Fleischman and partner Jeffrey London bought the club from the imprisoned owners and reopened it September 15, 1981—invitations printed on silver 25-watt lightbulbs, 12,000 of them mailed. Wednesday and Sunday 'Modern Classix' programming bridged disco to the new pop decade; the Fleischman years brought Madonna, Culture Club, Duran Duran, and Wham! to the stage. Fleischman filed for bankruptcy in November 1985; the club closed in April 1986, unable to obtain liability insurance. Roundabout Theatre Company remodeled the main hall as a Broadway house in 1998, staging Cabaret there through 2004; the room still operates as a Roundabout Broadway house under the Studio 54 name, with 54 Below in the basement since 2012.