LAST DAYS OF DISCO

Pictures of Young Michael Jackson, Margaret Trudeau, Andy Warhol, and More During the Last Days of Disco at Studio 54


Studio 54 - September 2017 - Calendar
Robin Platzer/Twin Images

On the timeline of New York nightlife, the heyday of Studio 54 barely registers as a blip. Just three years separate the club’s celeb-mobbed 1977 opening and the raucous “going-away party” that proprietors Ian Schrager and the late Steve Rubell hosted before being carted off to jail for tax evasion. But in the four decades since that famous coke-snorting crescent moon first rose over the dance floor, no other nightclub has made quite as indelible an ­impression on the city’s social scene. From 10 p.m. until sunrise, A-list movie stars mingled with drag queens on roller skates, Park Avenue swans had (pre-AIDS-crisis) bathroom sex with downtown artists, and some of the 20th-century’s greatest literary lights watched it all from the infamous banquettes. Now, thanks to a new book, those who never made it past the velvet ropes—or are too young to have even tried—have a window into that wild-and-crazy magic. Studio 54 (Rizzoli), edited by Schrager, now impresario of a slew of hotels including the new Public Hotel, is equal parts oral history, personal scrapbook, and photo album, bringing together the reminiscences of regulars with star-studded snapshots and reams of gossip columns. Schrager, it seems, saved everything.

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Robin Platzer/Twin Images

A night out at Studio 54, in 1979, with Lorna Luft, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote, and Paloma Picasso (from left).

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Michael Jackson, cofounder Steve Rubell, and Richie Kaczor (Studio 54’s most successful DJ) in the DJ booth.

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Photo by Adam Scull-PHOTOlink.net

Truman Capote hitting the dance floor in 1978.

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Photo by Adam Scull-PHOTOlink.net

Former First Lady of Canada (and Justin Trudeau’s mother) Margaret Trudeau with Andy Warhol at Studio 54 in 1978.