... night 1982 going to the Roxy nightclub at 515 West 18th Street, the space is large, the music is thumping and the crowd is loose. First opened in 1978 as a roller disco it became the premiere dance club and the place to be seen. It was refereed to as the Studio 54 of roller rinks in its day. It finally closed in 2007 bringing an end to the mega watt discos of the past. In this video featuring the Dazz Band the night they played the Roxy. So let it Whip! Dazz Band Let It Whip, Courtesy of leonardofjr. Thank ...
Katherine Hepburn and the West Village
... would live in New York on and off for years, but the first time I got there I had 2 specific places I wanted to see the most before anywhere else. One was The West Village, which I’d seen on my second day in town, and the second was Studio 54, which by the time I got there had already gained legendary international status. Of course I had no connections, I didn’t know anyone, and all I knew about finding my way around began and ended with the D train from Brooklyn to the W4th station in the Village..but..if [...]
The Queen of Gay Discos Since 1948, Bisexual?
... icon Grace Jones born Grace Mendoza on May 19th 1948 in Spanish town Jamaica. The family moved to Syracuse, New York in 1965. Grace’s first film roll was in Gordon’s War in 1973 she played a drug courier in Harlem NYC, she signed her first record deal in 1977 with Island Records. Grace was a regular at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol to whom she was a muse. Grace’s careers also have included a modeling career her androgynous style made her a successful European model but because her looks were too strong for the American Magazines, Grace was not featured in American fashion. [...]
The Life and Times of Nelson Sullivan RIP 1948-1989
... with its freaks, parasites, and their limitless capacity both for self-invention and self-destruction, the beginnings of Downtown. It wasn’t just another bohemia, but a post-pop society driven and unified by the desire for fame. In documenting this birth he created a video equivalent of Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists’, especially valuable given the ephemeral nature of the crucible in which these events took place: club culture. It was a renaissance time. Studio 54 was the laboratory inferno where disco was forged. Punk was created at CBGBs by the Ramones and New Wave fashioned by Blondie and Talking Heads [...]
Rollin’ Skeets, Fairy Godmother, History of Rollerena Queen of Studio 54
... September 16, 1972, he went into an antique store on Christopher Street put on a bathrobe-like gown, a 1950s hat, a straw basket and skated up and down Christopher Street. He went into a bar, the whole place went absolutely wild! A crowd gathered like they were awaiting Glinda landing in Oz. This was the birth of Roller Arena the Fairy Godmother. She made her debut as Roller Arena in the 1973 Easter Parade. Her skating was limited to well-heeled neighborhoods, gay spots and chic haunts like Studio 54. She collected thirty 1950s hats, costume jewelry earrings, and 15 [...]
The Weekend After Stumbling Upon the Spike & the Eagle’s Nest
... at the time. Red Zone on fifty forth street, which is where I met Christine a girlfriend that lasted a year and seven months. She was twenty three years old and lived on the 2nd floor above the original Barney’s New York on seven tenth street. I told her I was nineteen when we 1st met in Redzone. Mars on the west side highway was another club we practically lived in, DJ Disciple parties which would jump around and never was held in the same place twice (pre raves in New York City). Studio 54 was another club we were always [...]