Studio 54 was a nightclub, but really much more than that. It became a symbol of the times as much as anything else in the 1970s. Strap on your platform heels and get down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is Studio 54 and why is it iconic?
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Chapter 2: What were the shocking revelations about Studio 54?
Dana Carvey.
Okay. Or Drew Carey. Let's just move on, shall we? All right. So we mentioned that they were called the Broadway Catering Corporation. And that would make sense later. And that moment comes right now, everybody, because they didn't have a liquor license, permanent liquor license, that is.
So every day, if you're like a catering company in New York or I guess a lot of other towns, you can get a temporary like one day license. liquor permit to do your catered event. And they did that every single day for a year.
Yeah. I guess based on the name, Broadway Catering Corporation, they'd be like, oh, okay, here's your catering license to go cater this party at 254 West 54th Street. Yeah, the fact that they did it every day. Whose job was it to go by and get that permit every single day? That's just so crazy. Then I saw one time, apparently, whatever agency issued those got wise to it, and they denied them once.
So at least one night, there was nothing but fruit juice and sodas, but guests were invited to drink as much of it as they liked for free.
So just mountains of drugs and then fruit juice and soda.
Yeah, so it was healthy.
All right. The Monday after it opened, I think they were usually closed on Mondays, but they would have special parties on the Mondays, which became a very big thing there, like renting the place out for like a $50,000 to $100,000 party, which at the time is, I mean, it's a lot of money now, but back then it was a ton of money. Yeah.
But Halston, fashion designer Halston, threw Bianca Jagger a 30th birthday party there the Monday after it first opened. And they were like basically kind of putting it together up until the minute that the doors opened.
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Chapter 7: How did Studio 54 impact nightlife culture?
It was Hieronymus Bosch.
It might have been.
So in 1978, December 1978, the place got raided, apparently with 30 agents. That's a big raid. And I guess as they were searching the place, Schrager showed up and was like, hey, what's going on, everybody? And he was carrying with him their cooked books. Yeah. Or I guess the uncooked books, which is even worse, that in detail, meticulously detailed all the money they were stealing.
And one of the other things that it showed is that all the cocaine – because, like, they weren't selling cocaine necessarily. I'm sure, like, if you were a nobody who got in, they weren't just giving you free cocaine. You could buy it. But if you were, like, a celeb or somebody they wanted to keep happy, they gave you as much free cocaine as you possibly wanted. Yeah. And they would expense that.
Yeah. Well, the cocaine they bought, they expensed it whenever they actually did pay taxes. So all of this was basically being carried in by Schrager. And then as a little cherry on top, on top of the pile, there were five ounces of cocaine. So he walks in with 30 IRS agents raiding the place with that on him. And they're like, why don't you put that down and come over here?
Yeah, he disputes in the documentary that it was on him. He was like, this was stuff that they collected from around the club. But, you know, the prosecutor said that he had it with him. So either way, lots of cocaine, lots of cash, lots of skimming off the top. They would change the cash register tape midway through the night to have another set of books that were on the up and up.
But they would eventually hire famous... scumbag attorney Roy Cohn to come in and defend them. And he very poorly gave them the advice of like, hey, flip over a bunch of tables and stuff and make it look like worse than it is. And let's get these pictures out there. And that just bought more, you know, disdain and retribution from the state. Yeah, smart. Or the city, I guess.
There was one little point that I thought was kind of sad. During this raid, the IRS agents supposedly found a room. There were a lot of like secret rooms, like VIP rooms. But this one was so secret and so VIP that according to Andy Warhol, Halston hadn't even been told about it. And when he found out about it, it hurt his feelings. And I'm with him. I can totally understand that.
He dropped so much cash there. And then don't forget that first birthday party that they hosted that he threw for Bianca Jagger. Put Studio 54 on the map. And they didn't tell him about the most secret room. I feel bad for Halston.
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