Studio 54
254 West 54th Street | Midtown | built 1926
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1927
The building opens as the Gallo Opera House
Studio 54 began as the 1,400-seat Gallo Opera House, designed by Eugene De Rosa and opened on November 8, 1927. It became the New Yorker Theatre in 1930, and from 1942 to 1976 CBS used it as Studio 52, where shows such as What's My Line? and Password were made.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
Billy Rose's Casino de Paree opens in the old theater as a cheap Depression nightclub
Continental Music Halls spent $200,000 converting the former New Yorker Theatre into the Casino de Paree, which opened on December 12, 1933. The stage became a dance floor flanked by two bands, and Billy Rose produced two shows a night, charging guests $1.50 to $2. Rose left in September 1934 over pay, and the club went bankrupt in April 1935.
“The club's operators spent $200,000 on renovations, reopening the venue on December 12, 1933. Billy Rose organized two shows a night, for which guests paid $1.50 to $2 per ticket.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1937
The WPA's Federal Music Project opens the Theatre of Music
The theater had already cycled through the Gallo Opera House, New Yorker Theatre, Casino de Paree nightclub, and the short-lived Palladium Music Hall when the Depression-era Federal Music Project leased it in 1936 and opened it as the Theatre of Music. An all-black cast from Chicago performed 'The Swing Mikado' there in early 1939 before the production moved to the 44th Street Theatre, and the WPA's run at the venue ended within a few years.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1941
NBC projects a live boxing match onto a giant screen inside the New Yorker Theatre
NBC installed a 15-by-20-foot projection screen on the stage in early 1941, at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000. In May, over a thousand people watched a live broadcast of the Billy Soose and Ken Overlin boxing match from Madison Square Garden. It was the screen's first public exhibition.
“The first public exhibition of the theater's screen was in May 1941, when over a thousand audience members watched a live broadcast of a boxing match between Billy Soose and Ken Overlin.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1942
CBS turns the theater into a television and radio studio
CBS took over the space as Radio Playhouse No. 4 and converted it to CBS-TV Studio 52 by 1949. Game shows including 'What's My Line?', 'Password', and 'Beat the Clock' were taped there over the following decades, along with the children's program 'Captain Kangaroo', until CBS's 'Love of Life' wrapped its final taping in 1975.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
Publicist Carmen D'Alessio builds buzz for the club's April 1977 opening
Carmen D'Alessio, a public-relations entrepreneur from the fashion industry, handled publicity for Studio 54. Her Rolodex held names such as Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. History.com says her buzz-building made the April 1977 opening a major topic in the city's gossip columns.
Source: history.com
- 1977
Bianca Jagger is photographed on a white horse at her birthday party in the club
On May 2, 1977, days after the club opened, co-owner Steve Rubell brought a white horse into Studio 54 as a birthday surprise for Bianca Jagger, and she was photographed on it. She later said she had not ridden in on the horse and had only climbed on for a few minutes once inside. She called the idea that she would ride a horse into a nightclub offensive, given her work as an animal-rights defender.
Source: nme.com
- 1977
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager open the Studio 54 disco
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 on April 26, 1977, and its strict door policy and celebrity crowd made it famous. After an IRS raid in December 1978, the two pleaded guilty to tax evasion and were sentenced in January 1980. The club lost its liquor license on February 29, 1980, and closed that March.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
IRS agents raid Studio 54 and arrest Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager
In December 1978 an unhappy former employee tipped off the Internal Revenue Service that the owners were skimming profits and storing cocaine in the basement. Agents soon raided the club and arrested Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, though the club stayed open that night. In June 1979 a grand jury indicted them for skimming $2.5 million, as much as 60 percent of receipts over two years.
“In December 1978, a tipster called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), alleging that Rubell and Schrager were skimming profits. Shortly after, IRS agents raided Studio 54 and arrested Rubell and Schrager.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1979
A Valentine's Day party brings in 3,000 Dutch tulips and sod from Bermuda
For a Valentine's Day party in 1979, the organizers brought in 3,000 tulips from the Netherlands and 4,000 square yards of Bermuda sod, and they rented eight antique sculptures at $17,000 apiece. The club's private parties cost tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum, and their invitations used props like inflatable hearts and jars of confetti.
“The organizers of a Valentine's Day party in 1979 imported 3,000 Dutch tulips, transported 4,000 square yards of sod from Bermuda, and rented eight antique sculptures.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1980
Studio 54's first run ends with a party called "The End of Modern-day Gomorrah"
The first era of Studio 54 closed with a party in early February 1980, billed as "The End of Modern-day Gomorrah." History.com dates the closing-night party to February 4 and treats the years since the April 1977 opening as a golden era of the disco craze.
Source: history.com
- 1981
Mark Fleischman reopens Studio 54 with invitations delivered on silver lightbulbs
Restaurateur Mark Fleischman bought into the club after the owners' convictions and reopened it on September 15, 1981. He and his partner Jeffrey London mailed 12,000 invitations, each delivered on a 25-watt silver lightbulb. Within three months he had pushed out his new managers, Jim Fouratt and Rudolf Piper, who went on to open the Danceteria nightclub.
“Studio 54 officially reopened to the public on September 15, 1981. Fleischman and his partner Jeffrey London mailed out 12,000 invitations for Studio 54's reopening, which were delivered on 25-watt silver lightbulbs.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1989
The Ritz rock club moves in from the East Village
The Ritz's owners, Neil Cohen and John Scher, took a 25-year lease on Studio 54 and spent $2 million restoring the run-down theater. The Ritz relocated from the East Village on April 5, 1989, and at its busiest hosted about 150 shows a year of rock, pop and salsa. The Times found the new location more popular than the old one, thanks to its sound and sightlines.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
Roundabout Theatre turns the old disco into a Broadway house
In 1998 the Roundabout Theatre Company converted Studio 54 into a Broadway theater for its revival of Cabaret. The company bought the building in 2003 and still produces plays and musicals there.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2012
The cabaret room 54 Below opens in the basement
54 Below opened in June 2012 beneath the theater at 254 West 54th Street, created by the Broadway producers Tom Viertel, Marc Routh, Richard Frankel and Steve Baruch. Richard Lewis designed the space with John Lee Beatty, Ken Billington and Peter Hylenski. The room seats about 140 people, with no table more than 24 feet from the stage, and it became a nonprofit in 2023.
Source: 54below.org
- 2017
President Obama pardons Ian Schrager for the Studio 54 tax conviction
In January 2017, President Obama pardoned Ian Schrager, who was convicted of tax evasion in 1979 and spent a year in prison in 1980 and 1981, with a $20,000 fine. Schrager said of his time in jail: "I made certain mistakes and I paid for them." His partner Steve Rubell died in 1989.
Source: wgbh.org
Further reading
- Studio 54Wikipedia
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