I saw the movie ‘54’ about it, I wondered if any eyewitnesses are here who were there in person.
Was it like the movie? Give us some juicy freaky details
Haven’t seen the movie.
I went there once with my ex, who had been there many times before. The main thing I remember was that it was very loud, and I had trouble understanding people talking to me. Much worse than a loud bar. It was really not my kind of place. I experienced it once, and never had any desire to go back.
At one point I was standing in line for the men’s room, and the quirky little middle-aged guy in front of me started chatting with me. I have no recollection of what we talked about, I think he was just commenting on all the celebs there, most of whom I’d never heard of. Afterward, my partner asked me what I was talking to Truman Capote about.
I lived in NYC during the Studio 54 heydays.
Nobody I knew ever wanted to go there - it was considered a tourist trap and the only people who stood in line to get in were from New Jersey. Sort of like New Year’s Eve at Times Square - no real New Yorker went there either, just tourists.
If you were into music back then, a real New Yorker would have gone to CBGB’s on Bleeker to see the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, etc.
Gay guys would have gone to the Continental Baths to, of course, have sex - but also hear that new girl, Bette Midler, singing with some guy named Barry Manilow playing the piano for her. However, that place also was a short-lived hot spot that quickly fell out of popularity.
There were (and are) lots and lots of places to go in NYC that only the locals know about. Some only last a few weeks as hot spots to go, others might last a few years, but eventually most lose their luster quickly when that “new” place opens across town. Studio 54 might have been a hip, happening place for the proverbial 15 minutes, but when I was living there, it was already considered “out” and existing solely on PR hype for tourists.
So, short answer - no, never went to Studio 54.
BTW, the film “Studio 54” was good, but only in the sense that it showed a snapshot of what it was/is like to be on the cusp of going to any of the real, new hot night spots, and who/what goes on there. You might also want to see the film, “Party Monster” - based on a true-murder story about club kids who went to the Limelight - briefly the hottest place to go in NYC. (I did get to Limelight during a short visit to NYC shortly before it too became passé.)
In college I remember going to CBGB’s and the Lone Star Cafe. But my favorite hangout was the 1/5th bar. That was cool.
Good post…I remember the scene from the movie , where Rubell was lecturing his new bartenders…if you got fired from Studio 54, yiu went to a club caqlled “Xenon”-what was that place like?
I also remember that Rubell ordered that his bartenders had to wear gym shorts and tank tops-no pockets to stuff money in!
I was there well after the Rubell era ended, saw a friend of mine’s college band play there (some sort of battle of the bands) during the mid-1980s. Dunno how much the interior had changed by then, but it still looked OK (maybe a bit worn). For some reason I seemed to be the only one who figured out where the bathrooms are, which was good as I remember being asked thru-out the night by a number of women where the restrooms were [? I’m a male, and looked it even then - maybe I looked too much like the guys who bussed the empty glasses and beer bottles in the club?] - alas, I was unable to captialize on these interactions…
And yeah, by 1985 even to us it definitely was - “so, this is Studio 54…”
I can remember going twice, I was more into CBGB, my inch long bleached out to white hair [so I could use temp dye on the tips in different colors] wasn’t really the style for disco 
My cousin Pam was dating one of the bouncers [an old HS boyfriend, oddly enough. She got a kick out of the descriptions of what women would offer to get in] I had much more fun at Plato’s Retreat.
I miss the 70s when drugs and sex were fun and safe. sigh
I went there a couple of times, mid-80s, because my college roommate was a friend of someone there. Personally I hated it, but he went nearly every weekend. Nice thing about being a FoaF was that we got in even though we were underage.
I got to New York in 1980, by which time **54 **was already passe. My friend Tricia and I hit the clubs every weekend, and a new one seemed to open every week in the first half of the '80s: Palladium, Limelight, Saint, Mars Needs Men, Heartbreak, Roxy, Surf Club, Tunnel . . . My favorites were **Palladium **(a 1920s opera house) and **Limelight **(an 1850s church), not only for the architectural fabulousness, but because there was always a nook or cranny to sit down, which is important when you are wearing 4" spike heels.
Tricia and I had a foolproof way of getting into even the hottest new clubs: we realized the doormen could only see your head in the throngs outside, so I wore a white and yellow satin fried-egg cocktail hat, and Tricia wore a Gumby perched atop her head, as a scrunchie. Doormen always spotted us: “Fried Egg and Gumby–you’re in!”