Studio 54 was the New Club in New York City where the famous and beautiful went to dance and mingle.

The original incarnation of Studio 54 closed with a final party on Feb. 4, 1980, when Diana Ross personally serenaded Rubell and Schrager. Ryan O’Neal, Mariel Hemingway, Richard Gere, Jack Nicholson, and Sylvester Stallone were among the guests. After the original Studio 54 was closed, Schrager and Rubell pleaded guilty to tax evasion and spent 13 months in prison. When it reopened under new ownership in September 1981, Schrager and Rubell were hired as consultants.

“There isn’t a nightclub in the world that you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.”

— J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

The key of the success of Studio 54 is that it’s a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor.

-Andy Warhol

“New York is the loneliest city. It doesn’t smoke anymore, it doesn’t drink much anymore, it doesn’t do drugs, it’s too rich and too expensive. The people who made the fun for the people who made the money have moved out. It’s safe. But the city that doesn’t sleep can now barely stay awake for dessert—if it ever ate dessert… In a generation, New York swapped Studio 54 for an African-dance class. We don’t just connive in our own humiliation, but in our own loneliness, too.

– A. A. GILL, The Sorrow and the Pilates, Vanity Fair, January 2007.

Solitaire. It was an attractive name. No wonder they had christened her that in the sleazy nightclubs of Port au Prince. Even in her present promise of warmth towards him there was much that was withdrawn and mysterious.”

— Ian Fleming, Live and Let Die

Those were the days my friend

We thought they’d never end

We’d sing and dance forever and a day

We’d live the life we choose

We’d fight and never lose

For we were young and sure to have our way.

– Mary Hopkin, Those Were The Days

“I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

“A wise man once said, never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment.”

— Frank Zappa

Nightclubbing we’re nightclubbing

We’re what’s happening

Nightclubbing we’re nightclubbing

We’re an ice machine

– Iggy Pop, Nightclubbing

I have died too many times

believing and waiting, waiting

in a room

staring at a cracked ceiling

waiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound…

going wild inside

while she danced with strangers in nightclubs…

— Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame