And I went there with all kinds of people, from clones to socialites.
It existed in a time when it was hip to be glamorous.
More often than not, you’d leave 54 accompanied.” You could go in jeans or in black-tie, and if you were in black-tie you could still pick up cute boys in jeans. Simpson made a pass at me at Studio 54,” says Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowski, a star beauty of the 70s. I used to go to dance, but then all these men would chase after you because you were dancing. Remember the fountain that was a block away, in front of one of those big new office buildings on Seventh Avenue? We used to go swimming there after 54-we’d just flip off our shoes and dive in.” I’d duck down so they couldn’t see me, but they’d run after the car anyway! Oh, God, we had such good times.
Next year, two decades will have elapsed since Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager-“two P. Barnum types from Brooklyn,” as a veteran New York scene-maker put it-opened Studio 54 in a former CBS television studio on West 54th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and began their delirious reign as the absolute monarchs of Manhattan nightlife. And yet those who regularly made it past the legendary velvet rope recall their nights there with an immediacy that makes that carefree, faraway time seem like yesterday.
