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The Filthy Magic of Studio 54 · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm boogie down Josh,
0:14
Speaker 2: and there's Disco Stu Chuck and it's just the two
0:18
Speaker 2: of us because Diana Ross Jerry is not here right now.
0:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what I'm surprised we didn't tackle shortly
0:26
Speaker 1: after our disco episode as like a two parter.
0:29
Speaker 2: It is a little surprising, isn't it. But I hadn't
0:31
Speaker 2: heard of Studio fifty four until you pick this, so
0:34
Speaker 2: I don't know how that would have been.
0:36
Speaker 1: That's funny.
0:37
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. I've heard of it. I'm cool, man,
0:40
Speaker 2: I'm hip, even though I guess I was one year
0:44
Speaker 2: old to three years old when it was open, so
0:49
Speaker 2: as it was going on, I wasn't aware of it.
0:51
Speaker 2: But later in life I kind of developed an awareness
0:54
Speaker 2: of it. What do you think about all that?
0:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I would have been six years old to nine,
0:58
Speaker 1: so I probably could have gotten into Studio four.
1:01
Speaker 2: I was gonna say the same thing. There's some shocking
1:05
Speaker 2: revelations about this stuff that anybody who knows about Studio
1:08
Speaker 2: fifty four is probably like, yeah, and that's just how
1:11
Speaker 2: it was. And on the outside, it's it's just nuts.
1:13
Speaker 2: It was just such a they called it like the
1:16
Speaker 2: disco sodom and Gomorrah. It was just a complete bach
1:21
Speaker 2: and all of like just drugs and sex and like
1:24
Speaker 2: in the club, and it was just absolutely nuts. But
1:29
Speaker 2: as you read about it, it's it's just the same
1:32
Speaker 2: themes over and over again. People had sex in the club,
1:35
Speaker 2: everybody was doing coke in the club, everybody was on quayludes,
1:38
Speaker 2: and Mick Jagger's wife Bianca was on a horse once
1:42
Speaker 2: and it just kept getting like it all was just
1:45
Speaker 2: kind of melded together, and I kind of felt like
1:49
Speaker 2: by the time I was done researching this, I get
1:51
Speaker 2: Studio fifty four.
1:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a documentary on Netflix that's okay called Studio
1:58
Speaker 1: fifty four. Yes, from filmmaker Matt I guess tiern Hour.
2:06
Speaker 1: There was a very bad movie about Studio fifty four,
2:10
Speaker 1: like a movie movie with Mike Myers in playing Steve Rebel.
2:14
Speaker 2: I thought that was the documentary. I was gonna say,
2:16
Speaker 2: Steve Rubell is like the spinning image of Mike Myers.
2:19
Speaker 1: But now I got youa no, Mike, it turns out
2:22
Speaker 1: Mike Rebell or I'm sorry Steve Rebell, Mike Myers, Young Billy, Joel,
2:26
Speaker 1: and Alex Edelman all sort of are the same person.
2:29
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting.
2:31
Speaker 1: They all look alike. But it's interesting. When I was
2:32
Speaker 1: watching the documentary, Emily was floating through the room here
2:36
Speaker 1: and there, and people were just like, oh my god,
2:38
Speaker 1: and we would just do this and this and this
2:40
Speaker 1: and this, and she finally wandered through and just went
2:42
Speaker 1: these people sound like idiots.
2:45
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. It's just basically another example of an apologies,
2:49
Speaker 2: like this is a pretty blanket statement, but the boomer
2:53
Speaker 2: generation being like, we did this and had so much
2:55
Speaker 2: fun and it's the coolest thing that could ever possibly happen.
2:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. Think, And it's sort of like it reeked of
3:02
Speaker 1: a documentary on like the you know, the what was
3:06
Speaker 1: that ill fated Doomed Island Music Festival fire Festival. Yeah,
3:13
Speaker 1: it was kind of like that where she was just like,
3:14
Speaker 1: these people are idiots, Like how long can you just
3:16
Speaker 1: sit around and talk about doing cocaine every night and
3:20
Speaker 1: dancing until the sun came up?
3:22
Speaker 2: Yeah? But the thing is, and Olivia helps us with this,
3:24
Speaker 2: and I think she kind of captured it. The reason
3:28
Speaker 2: it seems like that studio fifty four is still just
3:31
Speaker 2: so prominent in just the general cultural consciousness, especially in America.
3:39
Speaker 2: Is because it was short lived. It ended at its peak,
3:43
Speaker 2: so it didn't stick around long enough to like really
3:45
Speaker 2: like become passe. And in the very short, like bursting
3:52
Speaker 2: lifespan that it had less than three years, like thirty
3:55
Speaker 2: three months, I think it was just it was the
3:57
Speaker 2: coolest of the cool And when you all that together,
4:01
Speaker 2: that's how fifty years later, people like us are doing
4:05
Speaker 2: a podcast on it still. You know what I mean
4:07
Speaker 2: about a club a club. That's why we're doing a
4:10
Speaker 2: podcast one of eight thousand disco clubs that were open
4:14
Speaker 2: between nineteen seventy four and nineteen seventy six alone. That's
4:18
Speaker 2: how important this club was to that scene.
4:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's on one hand, there's a couple
4:23
Speaker 1: of ways to look at it. It was it was
4:24
Speaker 1: a symbol of something more than probably anything. Was the
4:28
Speaker 1: symbol of that era, of that excess and decadence and everything.
4:32
Speaker 1: And on one hand, like my brain goes, yeah, but
4:35
Speaker 1: you know what, this is great because it was these
4:38
Speaker 1: nightclubs were havens for minorities and for gay people, for
4:45
Speaker 1: that community to get together in a safe place where
4:47
Speaker 1: they could be themselves, because like you literally, like the
4:51
Speaker 1: documentary even says like, if you were a transgender person,
4:54
Speaker 1: you were taking your life in your hands walking down
4:56
Speaker 1: the street. Some nights, you know, you get just assaulted.
4:59
Speaker 1: You can still get assaulted for that, but especially back then.
5:03
Speaker 1: So part of my brain goes there, and part of it,
5:06
Speaker 1: of it goes to like kind of what Emily said,
5:09
Speaker 1: just like what a vapid material, just sort of scene
5:17
Speaker 1: based on how you looked and who you knew, and
5:20
Speaker 1: part of it part of it was like, oh wow,
5:22
Speaker 1: what a cool time, and then part of me was like, geez,
5:25
Speaker 1: what an awful group of people.
5:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, good. I'm glad that we pretty much
5:31
Speaker 2: arrived at the same place. And also I find it
5:33
Speaker 2: comforting that I'm following the long standing trend of agreeing
5:37
Speaker 2: with Emily.
5:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, as we get older, I think I tend
5:40
Speaker 1: to look at things a little more with like and
5:44
Speaker 1: I like that, rather than just like, yeah, man, what
5:46
Speaker 1: a cool party that was?
5:47
Speaker 2: Exactly for sure, but let's talk about what a cool
5:51
Speaker 2: party that was.
5:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess we should get to the building first,
5:54
Speaker 1: because it was a historied building. It was located at
6:00
Speaker 1: two fifty four West fifty fourth Street. It was originally
6:04
Speaker 1: an opera house in the nineteen twenties and then in
6:06
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, kind of through the fifties and into
6:11
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, it was a CBS studio. They
6:15
Speaker 1: had a sixty four thousand dollars Question and Captain Kangaroo
6:19
Speaker 1: and What's My Line? And it was called Studio fifty two.
6:23
Speaker 1: Weirdly at the time, it's so square. But they all
6:28
Speaker 1: eventually moved their operations to Los Angeles with the CBS
6:31
Speaker 1: studios there in Central Hollywood, and it sat there empty
6:35
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven. So the guys that noticed that
6:38
Speaker 1: studio was sitting empty or this large theater, I guess
6:42
Speaker 1: were two guys named Steve Rebell and Ian Schrager, who
6:45
Speaker 1: were Brooklyn guys from sort of working class to middle
6:50
Speaker 1: class Jewish families who met each other at college at Syracuse.
6:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently they became like friends for life. Ian Trigger
6:59
Speaker 2: said that after they met and became friends, he thinks
7:01
Speaker 2: that he and Steve Rubell spoke every day for the
7:05
Speaker 2: rest of Steve Rubell's life. And Ian Schrager also put
7:09
Speaker 2: it that because they were from Brooklyn. They had something
7:12
Speaker 2: to prove, especially you know, going to Syracuse with probably
7:16
Speaker 2: some wealthier kids and then coming from working class families.
7:21
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say they had a chip on their shoulder,
7:22
Speaker 2: but they were like, they were hustlers, they were ambitious.
7:26
Speaker 2: They were going to make a life for themselves rather
7:28
Speaker 2: than you know, just end up joining their dad's firms
7:31
Speaker 2: because their dads didn't have a firm. One was a
7:33
Speaker 2: postman and the other one was named Max the Jew
7:36
Speaker 2: who ran illegal gambling operations. So that kind of drive,
7:41
Speaker 2: and then also just the creativity that those two guys
7:44
Speaker 2: had together, and then also like just the connection that
7:48
Speaker 2: they had, Like this was a genuine partnership that came
7:52
Speaker 2: that this came out of it was it just kind
7:57
Speaker 2: of I think inserted a little electricity that otherwise wouldn't
8:00
Speaker 2: have been there. Yeah.
8:02
Speaker 1: So after they graduated, Ian Schrager went to law school
8:06
Speaker 1: at Saint John's and started practicing. Along the early seventies,
8:12
Speaker 1: Rebel got into the steakhouse business and was apparently opening
8:17
Speaker 1: steakhouses a little too quickly because he overextended himself. Did
8:22
Speaker 1: you see the one ad for one of his restaurants.
8:25
Speaker 2: No, they were called steak lofts, right, Like.
8:28
Speaker 1: Well, this one was at least steak loft make love
8:31
Speaker 1: to your stomach. And in the subheading it said all
8:35
Speaker 1: entrees include soup, salad, bar, baked potato, and shrimp.
8:39
Speaker 2: Wow.
8:40
Speaker 1: Not a bad deal.
8:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that is a pretty good deal. I'm kind
8:43
Speaker 2: of hungry for it now.
8:45
Speaker 1: But he had these steakhouses. He got into a little
8:48
Speaker 1: financial trouble and his old palse stepped in to help
8:51
Speaker 1: keep creditors at bay as his attorney. And then by
8:55
Speaker 1: this point though in the early seventies, they were already
8:58
Speaker 1: sort of co owners and two different discos, one in
9:02
Speaker 1: Queen's and one in Boston.
9:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one in Queen's is the more important one.
9:07
Speaker 2: They actually gave up their share in the one in
9:09
Speaker 2: Boston so that they could get full ownership of the
9:11
Speaker 2: Queen's one called in Chana Garden. And it was kind
9:15
Speaker 2: of like the original template for what would become Studio
9:18
Speaker 2: fifty four. They would throw like theme parties where everybody
9:22
Speaker 2: would dress up and they would decorate it along with
9:24
Speaker 2: the theme. Like it was way more than just some club.
9:27
Speaker 2: And it's like, look at the mirrors on the wall
9:29
Speaker 2: in the disco, ball up there like this was. There
9:31
Speaker 2: was theatrics to it too. And so the other big
9:36
Speaker 2: thing that happened at in Channa Garden is that they
9:39
Speaker 2: met a man named Jack Douchey or Dushy. Let's go
9:42
Speaker 2: with Dushy.
9:44
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought it was dhe is it?
9:45
Speaker 2: Oh? Do you s a g y do? Shee? Is
9:50
Speaker 2: definitely a pronunciation of that. So you say douche Huh?
9:54
Speaker 1: I thought it was, but I actually can't remember now
9:57
Speaker 1: from the documentary that I watched three hours ago.
9:59
Speaker 2: Well, let's agree it's definitely not Douchey. Okay. His name
10:03
Speaker 2: was Jack d and he owned a store in Brooklyn,
10:06
Speaker 2: I think a discount store, and was fairly wealthy. And
10:09
Speaker 2: he threw either depending on who you ask, his daughter's
10:11
Speaker 2: bot mitzvah or his son's bar mitzvah at in Channa
10:15
Speaker 2: Garden and I guess like the cut of Steve and
10:18
Speaker 2: Ian's jib, and went into business with them as a
10:21
Speaker 2: silent partner, and he gave them the influx of cash
10:23
Speaker 2: that they needed to start Studio fifty four.
10:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was about a half a million bucks. It
10:29
Speaker 1: was kind of a crazy idea at the time, even
10:31
Speaker 1: though disco techs were big. West fifty fourth Street at
10:35
Speaker 1: this time was really I guess the best way to
10:38
Speaker 1: say it is sleazy.
10:40
Speaker 2: Is it in your town square.
10:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's all sort of in that theater district.
10:45
Speaker 1: But at the time it was just it was dirty,
10:48
Speaker 1: it was dangerous. People thought like, if you're trying to
10:52
Speaker 1: open a high end disco tech like, this is not
10:54
Speaker 1: the part of town where you want to be doing that.
10:56
Speaker 1: They did it anyway.
10:57
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. They formed a company called Broadway Catering Corporation,
11:03
Speaker 2: which will make a little more sense in a little while,
11:06
Speaker 2: and they leased that building at two fifty four West
11:09
Speaker 2: fifty fourth Street and they got to work on turning
11:14
Speaker 2: it into a club. They did it in six weeks.
11:18
Speaker 2: They went from nothing to ready for people to come
11:22
Speaker 2: in six weeks without a construction license, I.
11:26
Speaker 1: Think, yeah, And they just kind of got to work.
11:30
Speaker 1: It was, you know, sort of a time where you
11:32
Speaker 1: could just get away with stuff until you didn't kind
11:35
Speaker 1: of under the table style, and that's what they did.
11:39
Speaker 1: You said they started with nothing, but not quite because
11:41
Speaker 1: the theater was it was an old theater, so they
11:44
Speaker 1: had a stage and they had a perscenium arch, and
11:47
Speaker 1: they had a lighting rigging system. Yeah, that was there
11:50
Speaker 1: from the TV days and because they sort of got
11:54
Speaker 1: not blocked, but their rivals in the other discotheques were
11:58
Speaker 1: basically saying like, hey, don't go work for the guys. Yeah,
12:01
Speaker 1: if you're a designer or you know someone who would
12:04
Speaker 1: help them open it. And so they went very smartly
12:07
Speaker 1: to Broadway and got people who worked in the theater
12:11
Speaker 1: to come in and they were like, this place has
12:12
Speaker 1: got all the bones and this lighting rig's already set up,
12:15
Speaker 1: Like this is not going to be too hard.
12:17
Speaker 2: No, they had a lot to work with, in other words,
12:20
Speaker 2: so they hired one guy, a guy named Richard Long,
12:23
Speaker 2: who actually was the sole veteran of the club scene
12:27
Speaker 2: of like like setting up clubs. He had set up
12:29
Speaker 2: the sound systems for most of the gay discos in
12:32
Speaker 2: New York, so he knew what he was doing, and
12:35
Speaker 2: that certainly came in handy because, I mean, one of
12:38
Speaker 2: the main things of Studio fifty four was the music,
12:41
Speaker 2: right like in the dancing to the music. So to
12:44
Speaker 2: have a pro creating the sound system was a big one.
12:47
Speaker 2: And then you also cannot overlook the role that Carmen
12:50
Speaker 2: Delecio did. She was a pr sorceress. I saw her
12:55
Speaker 2: described as and her role essentially was to basically go
12:59
Speaker 2: around to New York's glitterati and talk about how awesome
13:03
Speaker 2: this club is going to be. And it worked very well.
13:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. There were other PR people that worked
13:11
Speaker 1: with them that literally got paid for placing story, placing
13:16
Speaker 1: stories in the newspaper, Like you get five hundred dollars
13:19
Speaker 1: if there's a picture of Liza Benelli and Truman Capoti
13:23
Speaker 1: going into Studio fifty four in the New York Post,
13:26
Speaker 1: and you get this much if it's in this magazine.
13:28
Speaker 1: And that was, you know, it was a pretty smart
13:31
Speaker 1: way to do it. It was incentivizing these PR people
13:35
Speaker 1: to get the you know, the biggest stars of the
13:37
Speaker 1: time very publicly through usually the front door, but sometimes
13:41
Speaker 1: they would slip in through the stage door.
13:43
Speaker 2: Right. There was also just a little bit more about
13:46
Speaker 2: the club, right, I see that it had eighty five
13:51
Speaker 2: foot ceilings. Is that right?
13:54
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it was super super tall.
13:56
Speaker 2: That's like a nine story building inside. Yeah, okay, well
14:02
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure because my brain starts
14:04
Speaker 2: to boggle, like thirty feet up.
14:06
Speaker 1: Well, I mean those big the old theaters in New
14:10
Speaker 1: York were huge and vast yeah, and still are okay,
14:14
Speaker 1: So like, that's what you got to remember is this
14:16
Speaker 1: was a performance theater turned into a nightclub.
14:19
Speaker 2: Right, I got that. I still don't think I've ever
14:21
Speaker 2: been in a theater that was eighty five feet up
14:23
Speaker 2: to the ceiling.
14:25
Speaker 1: Maybe you should go to Carnegie Hall, my friend.
14:27
Speaker 2: I'm a bad judge of height and distance and all
14:30
Speaker 2: that too, But so I guess it makes sense then
14:33
Speaker 2: that it could hold a capacity of two thousand people
14:35
Speaker 2: because when they ran out of room on the floor,
14:37
Speaker 2: they just start stacking them on top of one another.
14:42
Speaker 1: On that eleven thousand square foot dance floor. And you know,
14:46
Speaker 1: while there was a scene happening anyway, a lot of
14:49
Speaker 1: it was really about the dancing. There. There was a
14:52
Speaker 1: mezzanine lounge on the second story, a second story bar,
14:55
Speaker 1: and a balcony that kind of looked down upon the
14:58
Speaker 1: whole thing where you could go up and drink and
15:01
Speaker 1: do mountains of cocaine and have public sex.
15:05
Speaker 2: What how cool? Are you serious?
15:09
Speaker 1: It all sounds gross to me.
15:11
Speaker 2: I mean it was gross. At one point they retrofitted
15:14
Speaker 2: the second floor balcony, like the I guess, the whole
15:19
Speaker 2: area around it with like wash off rubber coating. Gross.
15:26
Speaker 2: It is gross. The whole thing's gross. Yes, and it
15:30
Speaker 2: was fairly gross. But I saw it. I saw it
15:32
Speaker 2: described as this. These people were living in the age
15:36
Speaker 2: after the invention of the pill, before the onset of aids,
15:41
Speaker 2: so they could just have public sex and do mounds
15:45
Speaker 2: of cocaine and take tons of kuludes with virtually no
15:50
Speaker 2: consequences whatsoever, the.
15:53
Speaker 1: Good old days, I guess.
15:54
Speaker 2: So you want to take a break.
15:56
Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
15:57
Speaker 2: Oh?
15:58
Speaker 1: Look at us. Yeah, let's do that, and we'll talk
16:01
Speaker 1: about opening night right after this.
16:33
Speaker 2: Okay, chuck. So it's opening night six weeks after they
16:35
Speaker 2: started construction on Tuesday, April twenty sixth, nineteen seventy seven,
16:40
Speaker 2: aka the most important date in the history of humanity.
16:44
Speaker 2: According to some of the people who were there, that
16:48
Speaker 2: hype that Carmen Delecio had been building up was really
16:51
Speaker 2: paying off. Apparently there was an hour's long wait already,
16:55
Speaker 2: and it was so long that Frank Sinatra and Warren
16:57
Speaker 2: Batty were like, this is taking too long. I'm out
17:01
Speaker 2: of here. That's how long the wait was, Warren Baby.
17:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, they I mean the pre hype was there in
17:11
Speaker 1: full because well because of the pr push for one,
17:15
Speaker 1: but also because they were selling memberships before it opened.
17:19
Speaker 1: They had eighteen thousand people apply to get a membership card.
17:24
Speaker 1: So here's how it worked. If you just showed up
17:28
Speaker 1: and you were lucky enough to get in and had
17:30
Speaker 1: to pay the cover I think they landed on like
17:33
Speaker 1: ten bucks, even though I saw everything from seven to fourteen.
17:37
Speaker 1: Ten bucks is around close to fifty bucks a day,
17:39
Speaker 1: So it wasn't cheap to get in for a cover charge.
17:42
Speaker 1: But if you bought a membership card for between seventy
17:44
Speaker 1: five and one hundred and fifty, you were guaranteed. And
17:48
Speaker 1: that's in scare quotes, because nothing was really guaranteed as
17:51
Speaker 1: far as entry goes there, but you were supposedly guaranteed entry,
17:54
Speaker 1: but you had to pay with a three dollars reduction
17:57
Speaker 1: in charge. Eighteen thousand people apply for that card and
18:00
Speaker 1: only three thousand got it pre opening.
18:02
Speaker 2: Wow. Pretty nuts.
18:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:05
Speaker 2: So this one of the other legends or stories about
18:10
Speaker 2: opening night is that wait was so long that they
18:12
Speaker 2: just basically broke out into a party on the sidewalk
18:16
Speaker 2: outside of the club, thanks in large part to a
18:19
Speaker 2: doctor who came by with a bunch of quay ludes.
18:22
Speaker 2: Apparently coayludes went for like ten cents a pop and
18:25
Speaker 2: everybody had them at all times. And I was looking
18:29
Speaker 2: up what it was like to take ludes, as they
18:32
Speaker 2: were called, and apparently there's not really any drug you
18:35
Speaker 2: can compare it to today. They were their own thing,
18:38
Speaker 2: and they were a sedative, but they also had all
18:41
Speaker 2: sorts of other weird effects. Like I saw it described
18:44
Speaker 2: like you'd sit on a couch and you weren't sitting
18:46
Speaker 2: on the couch. You were melting into the couch. But
18:48
Speaker 2: then at the same time you were also super randy
18:51
Speaker 2: and it made sex amazing, and you were just relaxed
18:54
Speaker 2: and like ready to go along with whatever. And everybody
18:58
Speaker 2: loved ludes and they were super plentiful. So when this
19:01
Speaker 2: doctor came along and handed out ludes, the pre party
19:06
Speaker 2: broke out.
19:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, the quaalan thing is weird because there were people
19:11
Speaker 1: in the documentary saying like nobody was ever on a
19:13
Speaker 1: downer in that place and it was all uppers, and
19:17
Speaker 1: so I don't know, it's just very strange. Maybe it
19:19
Speaker 1: went well with cocaine and alcohol.
19:20
Speaker 2: I get that impression for sure.
19:23
Speaker 1: All Right, So people are showing up. You mentioned you
19:27
Speaker 1: mentioned Brookshields, right, No, okay, Well Brookshields was there. She
19:30
Speaker 1: was eleven years old. That's my opening joke there. And
19:35
Speaker 1: she was taken there by Robin Leach, who would later
19:38
Speaker 1: go on to host Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
19:41
Speaker 2: I used to do a great Robin Leach, let's hear it. No,
19:45
Speaker 2: in retrospect it wasn't great at all, but at the
19:47
Speaker 2: time I thought it was pretty great. I also did
19:49
Speaker 2: a good Bartles and James impression. And then my other
19:53
Speaker 2: one was Larry of Larry, Daryl and Darryl from Newhart.
19:58
Speaker 1: You did a bart You did it impression of a
20:01
Speaker 1: bottled drink of the.
20:02
Speaker 2: Remember the two guys who were like the spokesmen who
20:05
Speaker 2: were supposedly Bartles and James.
20:06
Speaker 1: And you did both.
20:07
Speaker 2: No, one of them didn't speak. The other one, okay,
20:10
Speaker 2: the shorter, more roton one with classes he spoke. I
20:14
Speaker 2: have no recollection of what he sounded like, but I
20:17
Speaker 2: would do those impressions.
20:19
Speaker 1: I love it. So you did what was the first one,
20:21
Speaker 1: Robin Leech, Robin Leech. The last one, uh, Larry of, Larry,
20:27
Speaker 1: Caryl and Darryl from Newhart. And then the actor who
20:30
Speaker 1: played a commercial spokesperson.
20:32
Speaker 2: For Bartle's and James for bartle Wine Coolers.
20:36
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a of a of a moment, a
20:39
Speaker 2: specific moment in history.
20:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I was doing Life, Wolfman, Jack and
20:44
Speaker 1: John Travolta back then, so I was also at the time.
20:47
Speaker 2: I got a John Travolta, I've heard your Travolta.
20:50
Speaker 1: Let's hear it?
20:51
Speaker 2: Why you so wee it? Yeah, there you go, And
20:54
Speaker 2: it's not actually John Travolta. I'm doing Dana Carrey doing
20:57
Speaker 2: John Travolta.
20:59
Speaker 1: Dana Carvey day in a Carvey Okay, that's Ordrew Garrett show.
21:05
Speaker 1: All right. So we mentioned that they were called the
21:09
Speaker 1: Broadway Catering Corporation and that would make sense later and
21:13
Speaker 1: that moment comes right now everybody. Because they didn't have
21:16
Speaker 1: a liquor license, permanent liquor license that is, so every day,
21:21
Speaker 1: if you're like a catering company in New York or
21:23
Speaker 1: I guess a lot of other towns, you can get
21:25
Speaker 1: a temporary, like one day liquor permit to do your
21:29
Speaker 1: catered event. And they did that every single day for
21:31
Speaker 1: a year.
21:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess pretty smart. Based on the name of
21:35
Speaker 2: Broadway Catering Corporation. They'd be like, oh, okay, here's your
21:38
Speaker 2: catering license to go cater this party at two fifty
21:42
Speaker 2: four West fifty fourth Street. Yeah. And the fact that
21:45
Speaker 2: they did it every day. Whose job was it to
21:47
Speaker 2: go by and get that permit every single day? That's
21:52
Speaker 2: just so crazy. Then I saw one time apparently the
21:56
Speaker 2: whatever agency issued those got wise to it and they
22:00
Speaker 2: denied them once. So at least one night there was
22:03
Speaker 2: nothing but fruit juice and sodas, but guests were invited
22:06
Speaker 2: to drink as much of it as they liked for free.
22:09
Speaker 1: Oh so just just mountains of drugs and then fruit
22:13
Speaker 1: juice and soda.
22:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was healthy all right.
22:17
Speaker 1: The Monday after it opened. I think they were usually
22:19
Speaker 1: closed on Mondays, but they would have special parties on
22:22
Speaker 1: the Mondays, which became a very big thing there, like
22:26
Speaker 1: renting the place out for like a you know, fifty
22:28
Speaker 1: to two one hundred thousand dollars party, which at the
22:31
Speaker 1: time is I mean, it's a lot of money now,
22:32
Speaker 1: but back then I was a ton of money.
22:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:34
Speaker 1: But Halston fashion designer Halston through Bianca Jaggar Jaggar a
22:39
Speaker 1: thirtieth birthday party there the Monday after it first opened,
22:43
Speaker 1: and they were like basically kind of putting it together
22:46
Speaker 1: up until the minute that the doors opened.
22:48
Speaker 2: Is it true that he approached them on the Monday
22:51
Speaker 2: that he wanted the party to be held.
22:54
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the legend. I don't know. I didn't
22:56
Speaker 1: verify it.
22:57
Speaker 2: So this was a really important deal that it was
23:00
Speaker 2: very smart of them to take his money and throw
23:02
Speaker 2: this party. This was the one where Bianca Jagger rode
23:08
Speaker 2: a white horse around I guess in a circle essentially
23:11
Speaker 2: in the club and then I'm sure somebody gave the
23:14
Speaker 2: horse some cocaine and everybody thought it was hilarious. But
23:17
Speaker 2: the reason that this was so important, by the way,
23:19
Speaker 2: was because the coverage of this party was it just
23:24
Speaker 2: went everywhere, and this was like where the people who
23:28
Speaker 2: hadn't yet heard of Studio fifty four heard of it.
23:31
Speaker 2: So Halston helped put this thing on the map with
23:33
Speaker 2: that party.
23:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And just five six seven years ago,
23:41
Speaker 1: Bianca Jagger very forcefully wanted to make it clear that
23:45
Speaker 1: she did not ride a horse around Studio fifty four
23:49
Speaker 1: because she's a big animal rights activist now and she
23:53
Speaker 1: really wanted that cleared up, So we would be remiss
23:55
Speaker 1: if we didn't say that that's a folk tale that
24:00
Speaker 1: she claims she sat on it for like two seconds
24:04
Speaker 1: and then got off of it, And she makes a
24:07
Speaker 1: distinction between that and riding a horse around a nightclubs.
24:10
Speaker 2: But there was definitely a horse at her birthday party
24:13
Speaker 2: at Studio fifty four.
24:15
Speaker 1: Yes, there are photos and she admits it.
24:17
Speaker 2: So one of the other things, too, is you said
24:20
Speaker 2: like some of these parties would cost fifty to one
24:22
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. I saw like even on non like
24:26
Speaker 2: party nights like that were like reserved private parties, they
24:31
Speaker 2: would often spend tens to up to one hundred thousand
24:34
Speaker 2: dollars just on like the themes and decorations and stuff,
24:37
Speaker 2: just for a regular night at Studio fifty four. Like
24:40
Speaker 2: they were just pouring money into this and they were
24:44
Speaker 2: getting even more out. I would be really interested to
24:47
Speaker 2: know what their return on investment was, because they just
24:51
Speaker 2: they put so much money into this place, and they
24:54
Speaker 2: seem to have made buckets of it, so much so
24:56
Speaker 2: that as we'll see, they would keep the cash and
24:59
Speaker 2: garbage back sometimes around the club.
25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's not because there was so much
25:05
Speaker 1: of it. It was because they didn't want the bank
25:07
Speaker 1: and the irs to find out about it.
25:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think if you have enough to fill
25:10
Speaker 2: a garbage bag, by definition, that's a lot, you know.
25:13
Speaker 1: Oh no, I wouldn't say it was a ton of money.
25:15
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it was all in an effort to obfuscate.
25:19
Speaker 1: But gotcha, we're spoiling the story.
25:21
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, Sorry, So.
25:23
Speaker 1: Rebel was he was the guy who was, I guess,
25:28
Speaker 1: sort of the host of the whole thing. He loved
25:30
Speaker 1: being out there, He loved hobnobbing with people. It was
25:32
Speaker 1: his biggest sort of dream in life to be a
25:35
Speaker 1: part of that crowd. Yeah, where Schrager was kind of
25:38
Speaker 1: like he was a guy behind the scenes. Seemed like,
25:41
Speaker 1: I mean, they were both smart guys, but he was
25:43
Speaker 1: definitely more of the brains behind the operation that would
25:46
Speaker 1: go there for a little while then go home to
25:48
Speaker 1: his family.
25:48
Speaker 2: I saw a picture of the two together. You can
25:51
Speaker 2: definitely tell Rubel's ready to party. He's wearing his famous
25:54
Speaker 2: padded coat, like his kind of down coat that he
25:57
Speaker 2: wore because he could hide tons and tons of coke
26:00
Speaker 2: in it. And then Ian Srigger is dressed like Ron Burgundy,
26:06
Speaker 2: I should say Ron Burgundy dress dressed like Ian Schrager.
26:09
Speaker 2: I guess really, but I mean just that same foggy
26:13
Speaker 2: London town gentleman look with like the blazer and the
26:17
Speaker 2: turtle net. Yeah and all that. He looks cool for sure,
26:21
Speaker 2: but he also looks like, yeah, I can see him
26:22
Speaker 2: going home early.
26:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and the good thing about the documentary is
26:26
Speaker 1: he's still with us, and it was sort of the
26:27
Speaker 1: first time he had talked much about it because he's
26:30
Speaker 1: again just sort of famously averse to attention, but he's
26:34
Speaker 1: he's one of the main, you know, interviewees in the dock.
26:37
Speaker 2: So yeah. So you said that Rubel was the host
26:39
Speaker 2: so much so that sometimes he would stand out front
26:42
Speaker 2: and say who could come in and who couldn't. And
26:46
Speaker 2: he was doing that because he put it that he
26:49
Speaker 2: was casting a play, so like the characters that he
26:53
Speaker 2: would pick out would all kind of come together and
26:56
Speaker 2: gel in a certain way inside to make the greatest
27:00
Speaker 2: possible party from the greatest mix of people. And one
27:05
Speaker 2: of the really important things about that is you didn't
27:08
Speaker 2: have to be famous to get in to Studio fifty four.
27:13
Speaker 2: You could just be a cool disco club kid who
27:17
Speaker 2: had a cool look and was clearly a cool kid,
27:20
Speaker 2: and you could get in like just from being you
27:23
Speaker 2: essentially and not having any connections whatsoever.
27:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was ninety percent of the crowd.
27:29
Speaker 1: Where just people. Because in a room of two thousand people,
27:33
Speaker 1: let's say ten to twelve celebrities getting all the attention,
27:36
Speaker 1: that's a lot of other regular folks out there. But
27:39
Speaker 1: they still had to get in. In order to get in,
27:41
Speaker 1: they had to pass whatever sort of secret test. Rebel
27:46
Speaker 1: and the other door people, I think the head doorman
27:49
Speaker 1: same was Mark Bennicky. He was nineteen years old, which
27:53
Speaker 1: is crazy head doorman, right, Yeah, but he was a
27:56
Speaker 1: good looking guy and he had never done anything like that,
27:57
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, you're handsome, so you should
27:59
Speaker 1: be able to judge other people on their looks. Rebel
28:03
Speaker 1: famously said a year ago, I wouldn't have even let
28:05
Speaker 1: myself in. And this is another one of those things
28:08
Speaker 1: where of two minds, Like on one hand, he was like,
28:11
Speaker 1: you don't have to have money to get in. You
28:13
Speaker 1: can be gay, straight, black, white, hispanic. Like, he didn't
28:18
Speaker 1: judge people on that, and so I'm like, oh, that's
28:20
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But he's like, I'm really just judging you
28:23
Speaker 1: on how you look, yeah, and if you seem to
28:26
Speaker 1: be cool.
28:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. He said that it couldn't be too gay, it
28:31
Speaker 2: couldn't be too straight. It needed to be very, very
28:33
Speaker 2: very bisexual. Yeah, so that was a big part of
28:37
Speaker 2: the mix too. But yeah, it was like who would
28:38
Speaker 2: get along with who, And then the dorman kind of
28:42
Speaker 2: developed their own shorthand too, Like if you looked like
28:45
Speaker 2: you were like a midnight cowboy type and you might
28:47
Speaker 2: go beat up some of the gay patrons inside, you
28:50
Speaker 2: weren't getting past the dorman. That was a big one
28:53
Speaker 2: right there. Like you said, it was a safe place
28:55
Speaker 2: for gay and trans people, and that started at the door.
29:00
Speaker 2: And also one of the other things too was Mark
29:03
Speaker 2: Bennicky again nineteen years old, the head dormant. He was
29:07
Speaker 2: the highest paid staff member, in part, I guess entirely
29:11
Speaker 2: so that he wouldn't take bribes to let people in
29:14
Speaker 2: at the door.
29:15
Speaker 1: Which I'm sure he never did.
29:17
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is is, I was thinking about that.
29:18
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, Kit, you would be
29:20
Speaker 2: like I love this money and I want some more,
29:22
Speaker 2: so I'm going to take some bribes. But then you
29:25
Speaker 2: think about if he's making enough money that he would
29:29
Speaker 2: not want to lose that job. Then it would keep
29:31
Speaker 2: him honest in and of itself, I think, not just
29:34
Speaker 2: like he doesn't need the money, you know what I mean? Yeah,
29:38
Speaker 2: So wait a minute, Wait a minute. What was funny
29:40
Speaker 2: about that? Did I just explain the obvious? Is that
29:43
Speaker 2: what I was doing? No?
29:44
Speaker 1: I think it's funny that you sat around and thought
29:48
Speaker 1: about whether or not he would take money or not
29:51
Speaker 1: because he had enough money.
29:53
Speaker 2: Well, I was just looking for any flaws in that plan,
29:56
Speaker 2: and I actually found it was fairly fool proof. So
29:59
Speaker 2: I appreciated it. Wanted to spotlight it here on stuff
30:02
Speaker 2: I should know.
30:03
Speaker 1: So Henry Winkler didn't get in. Some of the Kennedy
30:07
Speaker 1: kids didn't get in. There were a lot of people
30:09
Speaker 1: who didn't get in that were even famous, because you know,
30:13
Speaker 1: Henry Winkler was the Fonds, but he wasn't some cool
30:15
Speaker 1: guy in real life. They didn't want him in there.
30:17
Speaker 2: No, No, he wasn't super cool. Supposedly super nice, but
30:21
Speaker 2: also not super cool. Two other guys didn't get in,
30:25
Speaker 2: now Rogers and Bernard Edwards, who at the time they
30:29
Speaker 2: were in the group chic like the freak say Chic,
30:33
Speaker 2: and that song in particular was actually inspired by Studio
30:36
Speaker 2: fifty four.
30:37
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, supposedly when they didn't get in because Grace
30:41
Speaker 1: Jones did not leave their name on the list, they
30:44
Speaker 1: wrote that song, but it was sort of awe freak out.
30:47
Speaker 2: It was a f off, right, And then they're like, guys,
30:51
Speaker 2: you can make so much more money with the song
30:53
Speaker 2: if you just changed that to freak and they're like, oh, okay,
30:57
Speaker 2: So they did, and it became like, I'm sure they
31:00
Speaker 2: that song inside Studio fifty four all the time. Because
31:03
Speaker 2: one of the things that's worth mentioning too is as
31:05
Speaker 2: cool as this place was, like you would hear essentially
31:08
Speaker 2: all the same disco hits that you would hear on
31:10
Speaker 2: the radio. It was just again an eleven thousand square
31:14
Speaker 2: foot dance floor with tons of cocaine on it.
31:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they did have some criteria as far as
31:23
Speaker 1: like not necessarily the person at the on the street
31:25
Speaker 1: that they would look in, which one commentator from the
31:28
Speaker 1: time described as it was like the damned looking into paradise,
31:32
Speaker 1: Like all these people on the street like trying to
31:33
Speaker 1: look through the blacked out doors when they would open.
31:36
Speaker 1: But they had a list of like you know what
31:38
Speaker 1: kinds of designations people had. There were the No Goods,
31:42
Speaker 1: which they designated as GN on the sheet instead of MNG.
31:47
Speaker 1: They had regular guests who were pay guests who could
31:49
Speaker 1: get in but they had to pay the whatever ten bucks.
31:52
Speaker 1: They had the comps list, who were the freebies, and
31:56
Speaker 1: then the nfus, which were the no f ups. And
32:00
Speaker 1: by that they mean like, you can't screw this one up.
32:02
Speaker 1: They're very important. You have to get them in and
32:04
Speaker 1: get them straight to Steve Rebel.
32:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you see how or who was on the
32:10
Speaker 2: GN list? Then? Like who did you have to tick off?
32:14
Speaker 2: Or what did you have to do to have your
32:16
Speaker 2: name like on a list that you were not allowed
32:20
Speaker 2: in the studio fifty four no matter what. Like that
32:22
Speaker 2: wasn't just some schmo, like this is somebody who was
32:25
Speaker 2: specifically targeted to not be allowed.
32:28
Speaker 1: In maybe Famous Squares or Narcs competition or something.
32:35
Speaker 2: Winkler. Yeah, So there was also a just kind of
32:39
Speaker 2: a general rule like if somebody showed up looking like
32:42
Speaker 2: disco stew or just like a cartoonish version of a
32:46
Speaker 2: cool disco person, they probably weren't going to make it
32:49
Speaker 2: in either. And there was a story where I think
32:52
Speaker 2: Mark Binecki was not going to let this one dude
32:55
Speaker 2: in because he looked exactly like that. And then Steve
32:58
Speaker 2: Reubell was like, no, he can, he can come in.
33:00
Speaker 2: It's very gibb from the be G.
33:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, looking the park. They used to say polyester melts
33:06
Speaker 1: under the lights. So Rebel would chide people and say
33:09
Speaker 1: go home and put on a cotton shirt. And then
33:12
Speaker 1: one guy, and this is from a nineteen seventy eight
33:14
Speaker 1: New York Times piece, said the dormant told me to
33:17
Speaker 1: go home and read Freud's essay on rejection.
33:21
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, that's pretty great. Yeah, so there was like
33:26
Speaker 2: a lot of desperation to get in, Like you said,
33:28
Speaker 2: the Damned looking in on Paradise. Some people were like,
33:32
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be the damned any longer. I'm
33:34
Speaker 2: going to use this gun I have under my coat
33:36
Speaker 2: to make the doorman let me in. I did not
33:40
Speaker 2: see that that was successful. I don't see how it
33:42
Speaker 2: would be. It wouldn't be like, oh, you've got a
33:43
Speaker 2: gun on me, Sure, go ahead, go in with your gun.
33:46
Speaker 2: I don't know how that played out, but that's just
33:48
Speaker 2: kind of like the little thumbnail anecdotes that are completely
33:53
Speaker 2: surrounding Studio fifty four. There were some other ones too, right.
33:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were reports of people climbing down ropes from
34:02
Speaker 1: other buildings into the courtyard that had secret maps of
34:05
Speaker 1: the subway system, supposedly to get him in there. And then,
34:10
Speaker 1: and this is confirmed, that was a gentleman who was
34:13
Speaker 1: dressed in a tuxedo tried to sneak through an air
34:15
Speaker 1: vent and was discovered dead.
34:18
Speaker 2: Isn't that nuts? They didn't know that there was somebody
34:21
Speaker 2: in there until they started to smell the de composition. Yeah,
34:26
Speaker 2: so that there's apparently I didn't see it. A Netflix
34:30
Speaker 2: special on Halston, the designer who figures Big into.
34:35
Speaker 1: This does a show.
34:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I guess that made it into it too.
34:39
Speaker 2: But they changed the man to a woman for some reason.
34:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, who played Halston in that? I meant to look
34:44
Speaker 1: that up.
34:45
Speaker 2: Tommy Lee Jones. I think, oh, oh wow, do you
34:49
Speaker 2: want to take a break.
34:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll take our second break and we'll be back
34:53
Speaker 1: with Act three. All right. So I don't know if
35:26
Speaker 1: we mentioned it, Yeah, I think I did that. It
35:27
Speaker 1: was closed on Monday. It was open Tuesday through Sunday
35:29
Speaker 1: from they opened at ten pm, they closed at six
35:34
Speaker 1: am ish or whenever the party was over.
35:36
Speaker 2: Really, those are basically the times that I'm asleep.
35:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thousand percent. Yeah, I mean I may sleep
35:44
Speaker 1: until seven.
35:45
Speaker 2: Here and there.
35:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the days of staying out all night are
35:49
Speaker 1: long in my past.
35:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so Henry Winkler.
35:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was fun a little bit back
35:54
Speaker 1: in the day.
35:54
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, do that like when you didn't feel
35:56
Speaker 2: like just total, but like the next day after, you know, So, yeah,
36:01
Speaker 2: it used to be fun for sure.
36:03
Speaker 1: Speaking of total, But if you want to see a
36:05
Speaker 1: picture of Tennessee Williams looking really out of his mind,
36:10
Speaker 1: there's a fun picture of Tennessee Williams in his studio
36:13
Speaker 1: fifty four couch oh on back that. Yeah, he's bloodshot eyes.
36:17
Speaker 1: He looks like he's, you know, been through it.
36:19
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a there was a it was a
36:21
Speaker 2: murderer's row. Who's who of seventy's famous cool people who
36:26
Speaker 2: were there? Apparently divine, the very famous would it was
36:30
Speaker 2: divine trans or was divine considered a cross stutter? Is
36:33
Speaker 2: that just what they called divine back in the day
36:35
Speaker 2: before we called people trains?
36:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Divine went by the tag of
36:40
Speaker 1: drag queen back then. Probably, but I'm not I'm not
36:43
Speaker 1: really sure about these days.
36:46
Speaker 2: Okay, Divine still with this, I don't think so. I
36:50
Speaker 2: don't think you can live that fast and hard and
36:52
Speaker 2: still be around this many years later.
36:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd probably be a good episode, actually.
36:57
Speaker 2: Divine for sure. Yeah. For those of you who don't
36:59
Speaker 2: know who Divin, she was a star almost amused to
37:04
Speaker 2: John Waters and was in a bunch of John Waters
37:07
Speaker 2: movies and I think eight Dog Poop in one of them.
37:11
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, that was in Pink Flamingos. Yeah, Pink Flamingos,
37:16
Speaker 1: I think.
37:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, But yeah, we'll do an episode on Divine, even
37:19
Speaker 2: though we just gave away the twist, right. Andy Warhol
37:24
Speaker 2: was a big one there. In fact, he brought his
37:26
Speaker 2: whole factory crew and loved Studio fifty four so much
37:29
Speaker 2: that he basically was like he's sicked the entire staff
37:32
Speaker 2: of Interview magazine on it, and started basically covering Studio
37:35
Speaker 2: fifty four relentlessly in his magazine.
37:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I saw that the sort of the heartbeat
37:41
Speaker 1: of that crowd, like the real regulars, because you know
37:46
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger and you know Elton John and Robert de Niro,
37:50
Speaker 1: Like everyone who was anyone would pop in there, but
37:54
Speaker 1: like the heartbeat of the regulars were Liza Minelli, Halston,
37:59
Speaker 1: Beyond Jagger, and Andy Warhol. And I think Truman Capoti
38:04
Speaker 1: was like the fifth. Yeah, he's that for someome.
38:06
Speaker 2: He seems to have been about as regular as any
38:09
Speaker 2: of them. Grace Jones was a big one too. Oh yeah,
38:12
Speaker 2: I don't know if she was super into that circle.
38:14
Speaker 2: She seems to have been kind of a lone wolf
38:16
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. But one of the dormens
38:18
Speaker 2: said that she arrived naked so many times it became boring.
38:23
Speaker 2: I can totally see that.
38:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, she just sort of it's like, all right, Grace, right,
38:28
Speaker 1: maybe put on clothes, that would be the thing.
38:34
Speaker 2: There was also a woman named Disco Sally Right who
38:37
Speaker 2: just was a legend. She was. She also appeared in
38:41
Speaker 2: that Halston document or not documentary, but that Halston mini series.
38:45
Speaker 2: But they I think they kind of didn't do her
38:47
Speaker 2: justice from what I read. Oh really, yeah, so what
38:51
Speaker 2: about her?
38:51
Speaker 1: She was a well I think she was an attorney
38:54
Speaker 1: or former attorney and a widow who just like this
38:58
Speaker 1: lady loved to dance, and in the documentary they were
39:02
Speaker 1: like At first, the doorman Benicky was like, no, man, wait,
39:06
Speaker 1: this isn't it's going to be like a what do
39:11
Speaker 1: you call it, like a gimmick if we start letting
39:13
Speaker 1: people like this in, And he said. Rebel was adamant
39:16
Speaker 1: and just said no, she's exactly who you want in
39:19
Speaker 1: this place.
39:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we left out a really key thing.
39:21
Speaker 2: She was seventy seven and looked like nineteen seventy seventy seven,
39:26
Speaker 2: so she looked like one hundred and ten. She did,
39:29
Speaker 2: and she would dance all night. She was she was
39:32
Speaker 2: called disco Sally for a reason, Like she would get
39:34
Speaker 2: there and she would just start dancing for hours, and
39:37
Speaker 2: apparently she would stop to go pee and to do
39:40
Speaker 2: some coke, and then we'd get right back out on
39:42
Speaker 2: the dance floor. And she became, actually from her stint
39:45
Speaker 2: at Studio fifty four, a fixture on the New York
39:49
Speaker 2: night life scene for a long time to come.
39:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I bet it kept her young and alive and
39:54
Speaker 1: also killed her somehow at the same time.
39:56
Speaker 2: Exactly.
39:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, put, I guess we could go over some
40:00
Speaker 3: of these parties we mentioned that they would, you know,
40:03
Speaker 3: throw these huge, huge private parties, and they did everything
40:06
Speaker 3: from throw a country western party for Dolly Parton with
40:10
Speaker 3: more live animals goats and sheep and pigs and stuff.
40:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, god knows what happened to those sheep.
40:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't like the animal stuff in there, Like
40:18
Speaker 1: nothing good is happening to those animals.
40:19
Speaker 2: No for sure, and you know, like probably some bad
40:21
Speaker 2: stuff is happening to him too, let alone to just
40:24
Speaker 2: being scared.
40:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, don't take your goat to a cocaine disco.
40:32
Speaker 2: That's a that's a not just a T shirt, that's
40:34
Speaker 2: an epitaph.
40:36
Speaker 1: What else? Liz Taylor had a big birthday party there
40:38
Speaker 1: with the Rockets, among other things.
40:40
Speaker 2: Yeap Valentino did. And then they they had like Halloween
40:44
Speaker 2: apparently was like the big night where just if you
40:48
Speaker 2: were a normal person and you had a really great costume,
40:51
Speaker 2: there was a good chance you were going to get in.
40:54
Speaker 2: The better of the costume, the better your chances. Yeah,
40:57
Speaker 2: And like one year they did Hieronymous theme, which would
41:02
Speaker 2: have just been awesome. And I think that kind of
41:04
Speaker 2: shows like just kind of the coolness of the people involved, Like, yeah,
41:10
Speaker 2: you know, they didn't go with something trendy they went
41:14
Speaker 2: with like a really dark, bizarre, weird like Painter Hoheronymous
41:19
Speaker 2: Bosha's stuff is really cool And I didn't see what
41:21
Speaker 2: all they did with it, but from what I read
41:24
Speaker 2: about it, it seems like it was pretty bizarre. So pretty
41:26
Speaker 2: cool Halloween party if you ask me.
41:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, New York has always fun to Halloween. Imagine in
41:31
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine. It's audio fifty four.
41:35
Speaker 1: It was crazy.
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mean I walked all over New York once
41:38
Speaker 2: from basically Wall Street over to green Point and just
41:43
Speaker 2: spent the whole day doing that and it just had
41:45
Speaker 2: like such a totally different vibe than it normally does.
41:48
Speaker 2: It was cool, cool day. When was this, oh, twenty
41:52
Speaker 2: ten maybe something like that, because she went as a Snuggie.
41:57
Speaker 1: I think, oh on Halloween, Okay, I got you.
41:59
Speaker 2: Yeah Halloween, Halloween.
42:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had a couple of fun Halloween to New
42:04
Speaker 1: York back and when I was living in Jersey, that
42:07
Speaker 1: was the Bridge and Tunnel guy.
42:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they called the basically anybody who wasn't famous.
42:12
Speaker 1: Right, well, anybody from New Jersey gotcha. One of the
42:17
Speaker 1: outer boroughs got you because you came in via bridge
42:20
Speaker 1: in tunnel.
42:21
Speaker 2: Oh, I get it. Now, what about the end? Because again,
42:25
Speaker 2: this thing was like a bright, shining meteoric star that
42:29
Speaker 2: lasted less than three years, and it went down hard too,
42:33
Speaker 2: Like it wasn't like, ah, this has been fun. Let's
42:35
Speaker 2: shut the thing down, like the government came in and said,
42:38
Speaker 2: you're gonna shut the thing down.
42:40
Speaker 1: Essentially, Yeah, Steve bra Bell was very mouthe about how
42:43
Speaker 1: much money they were making. In the paper, he was
42:46
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, only the mafia does better. Not smart,
42:50
Speaker 1: to be sure, but at least according to the prosecutor
42:54
Speaker 1: and the documentary who prosecuted the case was like, it's
42:57
Speaker 1: not because Steve bra Bell was mouthy. He said, we
42:59
Speaker 1: had a confident informant on the inside that told us
43:03
Speaker 1: about the fact that they were skimming eighty percent of
43:07
Speaker 1: the money. And this guy was like, you know, if
43:09
Speaker 1: they were like business is skim back then with this
43:11
Speaker 1: kind of business, like skim twenty percent, and they would
43:14
Speaker 1: have gotten away with it. He said, they got greedy
43:17
Speaker 1: and were literally skimming like eighty percent off the books
43:20
Speaker 1: and keeping very very very detailed records about their skimming.
43:24
Speaker 1: So it was all there, and they had an informant
43:26
Speaker 1: kind of tell them where everything was hidden and where
43:29
Speaker 1: the books were. And I tried and tried to see
43:31
Speaker 1: if I could find anything about like who that might
43:33
Speaker 1: have been, and I came up completely empty.
43:36
Speaker 2: It was heronymous Bosh, it might have been. So in
43:40
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight December nineteen seventy eight, the place got raided,
43:44
Speaker 2: apparently with thirty agents. That's a big raid. And I
43:49
Speaker 2: guess as they were searching the place, Schrager showed up
43:53
Speaker 2: was like, hey, what's going on everybody, And he was
43:55
Speaker 2: carrying with him their cooked books, or I guess the
43:59
Speaker 2: Uncooked book, which is even worse that in detail, meticulously
44:03
Speaker 2: detailed all the money they were stealing. And one of
44:07
Speaker 2: the other things that it showed is that all the cocaine,
44:09
Speaker 2: because like they weren't selling cocaine necessarily. I'm sure like
44:13
Speaker 2: if you were a nobody who got in, they weren't
44:15
Speaker 2: just giving you free cocaine, you could buy it. But
44:17
Speaker 2: if you were like a celab or somebody they wanted
44:20
Speaker 2: to keep happy, they gave you as much free cocaine
44:22
Speaker 2: as you possibly wanted, and they would expense that all
44:27
Speaker 2: the cocaine they bought. They expensed it whenever they actually
44:30
Speaker 2: did pay taxes. So all of this was basically being
44:33
Speaker 2: carried in by Schreeger and then as a little cherry
44:37
Speaker 2: on top, on top of the pile, there were five
44:39
Speaker 2: ounces of cocaine. So he walks in with thirty IRS
44:42
Speaker 2: agents raiding the place with that on him, and they're like,
44:46
Speaker 2: why don't you put that down and come over here.
44:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, he disputes in the documentary that it was on him.
44:51
Speaker 1: He was like, this was stuff that they collected from
44:53
Speaker 1: around the club, but you know, the prosecutor said that
44:59
Speaker 1: he had it with him. So either way, lots of cocaine,
45:03
Speaker 1: lots of cash, lots of skimming off the top. They
45:06
Speaker 1: would change the cash register tape midway through the night
45:10
Speaker 1: to have another set of books that were on the
45:13
Speaker 1: up and up. But they would eventually hire famous scumbag
45:18
Speaker 1: attorney Roy Kohane to come in and defend them, and
45:22
Speaker 1: he very poorly gave them the advice of like, hey,
45:25
Speaker 1: flip over a bunch of tables and stuff and make
45:27
Speaker 1: it look like worse than it is, and let's get
45:30
Speaker 1: these pictures out there. And that just bought more disdain
45:34
Speaker 1: and retribution from the state. Smarter the city.
45:37
Speaker 2: I guess there was one little point that I thought
45:40
Speaker 2: was kind of sad. During this raid, the IRS agent
45:44
Speaker 2: supposedly found a room. There were a lot of like
45:47
Speaker 2: secret rooms, like VIP rooms, but this one was so
45:50
Speaker 2: secret and so vip that, according to Andy Warhol, Halston
45:54
Speaker 2: hadn't even been told about it, and when he found
45:57
Speaker 2: out about it, it hurt his feelings. And I'm with him.
46:00
Speaker 2: I can totally understand that he dropped so much cash there,
46:03
Speaker 2: and then don't forget that first birthday party that they
46:06
Speaker 2: hosted that he threw for Bianca Jagger put Studio fifty
46:09
Speaker 2: four on the map, and they didn't tell him about
46:12
Speaker 2: the most secret room. I feel bad for Halston.
46:15
Speaker 1: He should have had all access.
46:16
Speaker 2: Huh. Yeah, if anybody should have, sure, I mean even Liza,
46:22
Speaker 2: I don't know. Definitely Halston though. All right.
46:26
Speaker 1: So Jack de the silent partner who invested to begin with,
46:30
Speaker 1: was indicted along with them in a grand jury in
46:32
Speaker 1: June of seventy nine. That did not stop the club.
46:35
Speaker 1: They were still upgrading it and building new things. That's
46:37
Speaker 1: when that white clean rubber came in. They pleaded guilty
46:42
Speaker 1: in seventy nine of November seventy nine to tax evasion,
46:46
Speaker 1: with Jack de testifying against them. The two guys were
46:51
Speaker 1: sentenced to three and a half years, went to prison
46:53
Speaker 1: together thankfully, and paid a guy for a year of
46:58
Speaker 1: protection while they hold out their competition and turned state's
47:03
Speaker 1: evidence against them in forming on other discos and they're skimming.
47:08
Speaker 1: And they got out after but a year.
47:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, never trust a disco owner.
47:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Schreeger felt bad about it. He was like,
47:17
Speaker 1: you know, my dad, he was in the gambling business
47:19
Speaker 1: and all this, but he was like Max the Jew
47:22
Speaker 1: was a stand up guy, and like he would he
47:24
Speaker 1: was gone, And I'm glad because he would have been
47:26
Speaker 1: ashamed of me for being a rat.
47:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that.
47:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
47:30
Speaker 2: So the last they closed down, you said the club
47:33
Speaker 2: kept going, but at least for this moment. It closed
47:36
Speaker 2: down on February fourth, nineteen eighty with a Cyinara party
47:41
Speaker 2: farewell party when yeah, I think that's what they call
47:44
Speaker 2: him when they sent Schreger and Rubel off to prison,
47:49
Speaker 2: So he just burned the place down, basically one more
47:52
Speaker 2: night and those two they each served a year. Did
47:55
Speaker 2: you say that, I think yeah. And as after they
47:59
Speaker 2: got out, I guess they were in touch in prison,
48:02
Speaker 2: and they decided to get into the hotel business and
48:04
Speaker 2: they started the boutique hotel trend apparently in starting in
48:09
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four with a hotel they opened as Morgan's.
48:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, they sold the studio space to a god named
48:17
Speaker 1: Mark Fleischmann. He was a hotel guy, so they took
48:21
Speaker 1: over one of his hotels rebranded it as this new
48:25
Speaker 1: concept of boutique hotels. And that's what you know, Schreger
48:29
Speaker 1: did for a long time.
48:31
Speaker 2: I feel like it's time for boutique hotels to be
48:34
Speaker 2: reinvented as something else, don't you.
48:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what is it even just not part of
48:39
Speaker 1: a big chain or some of them are even parts
48:41
Speaker 1: of big chain.
48:42
Speaker 2: No, they've become very formulaic. I mean, like funky art
48:46
Speaker 2: in the rooms that are supposed to kind of feel
48:49
Speaker 2: like your house but just remind you that you're not home.
48:52
Speaker 2: Sometimes there's record players, there's like like a super cool
48:57
Speaker 2: bar where people not staying at the hotel com usually
48:59
Speaker 2: on the roof. And then there's the invariable restaurant, the
49:05
Speaker 2: house restaurant that is new American cuisine every single time,
49:10
Speaker 2: all of the same stuff on the menus and we're
49:12
Speaker 2: talking tic hotels in totally different cities with totally different owners,
49:17
Speaker 2: and everything's outfitted in like copper fixtures. You know what
49:21
Speaker 2: I'm talking about.
49:23
Speaker 1: Oh, I totally know you're talking about.
49:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a formula now. I mean, it's been around
49:26
Speaker 2: for forty years. I think we need something new.
49:29
Speaker 1: What's the new thing there is?
49:30
Speaker 2: I've already I'm calling for it.
49:32
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I gotcha. I thought you had an idea
49:34
Speaker 1: or something. I was like, man, let's talk after we
49:36
Speaker 1: hang up here.
49:37
Speaker 2: No, I'm the kind of person right now who has
49:39
Speaker 2: no ideas, just criticism.
49:42
Speaker 1: I got youa. So, they also opened a Pladium nightclub
49:45
Speaker 1: that was their last foray into the nightclub business, to
49:48
Speaker 1: sort of partially help finance their hotel aspirations. And very sadly,
49:56
Speaker 1: Steve re Bell died of complications from AIDS in nineteen
49:59
Speaker 1: eight eighty nine, and that left Ian Trigger alone and
50:03
Speaker 1: very sad because that was his bestie.
50:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really was Ian Trigger just kind of he
50:10
Speaker 2: had this thing hanging over him, this felony conviction. Even
50:13
Speaker 2: when they opened the Palladium, they couldn't be owners on
50:16
Speaker 2: paper because they weren't allowed to hold a liquor license.
50:19
Speaker 2: And in twenty seventeen he was pardoned by President Obama
50:23
Speaker 2: and I think one of his last days for the
50:25
Speaker 2: text of Asian conviction, and that meant a lot to
50:28
Speaker 2: Ian trigger. I read an interview with him from after that,
50:33
Speaker 2: and he seemed to like really appreciate that, and he
50:35
Speaker 2: seemed to have kind of been the kind of guy
50:37
Speaker 2: who maybe deserved a pardon all this time.
50:40
Speaker 1: Later, Yeah, he's like, can does this mean I can
50:43
Speaker 1: stop paying protection to that guy from prison?
50:47
Speaker 2: You got anything else?
50:48
Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
50:50
Speaker 2: Well, that means, of course everybody, since neither one of
50:54
Speaker 2: us have anything else. And it's time for listener mayl.
51:00
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this cool email and addendum. Hey, guys,
51:05
Speaker 1: the episode on widowhood just popped up. You mentioned federal
51:08
Speaker 1: elected officials and how often the widow is appointed. And
51:11
Speaker 1: it's quite common in my state of Kentucky in the
51:13
Speaker 1: past for the widow of a sheriff who dies in
51:16
Speaker 1: office line of duty or not to be appointed to
51:19
Speaker 1: that office, mainly because the sheriff's personal estate is wrapped
51:22
Speaker 1: up in his office, so letting her finish out the
51:26
Speaker 1: term give some time to figure out if his tax
51:29
Speaker 1: books balance. Wow, isn't that crazy. Yeah, if they don't,
51:33
Speaker 1: the estate will owe more to the county. There have
51:35
Speaker 1: been several notable widowed sheriffs or widow sheriffs in my state,
51:39
Speaker 1: one being the first documented one, Mary Roach, who served
51:42
Speaker 1: from twenty two to twenty seven after her husband was
51:45
Speaker 1: murdered in office and she was a real sheriff, went
51:48
Speaker 1: out with her deputies at work. Even The other was
51:51
Speaker 1: a woman named Sheriff Florence Thompson, who took over after
51:54
Speaker 1: her husband died in thirty six. She oversaw the last
51:57
Speaker 1: public execution by hanging. Was apparently the first and probably
52:01
Speaker 1: last woman to be in the role of you to
52:05
Speaker 1: be in that role in the United States. Just three
52:07
Speaker 1: months after she took office.
52:10
Speaker 2: I wonder if this is what the sitcom She's the
52:13
Speaker 2: Sheriff was based on.
52:15
Speaker 1: Maybe that's by the way, from Sean Herron, attorney at
52:19
Speaker 1: Law Louisville.
52:21
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Sean from Louisville. That was a great email.
52:23
Speaker 2: I definitely not heard that. Yeah, so thanks a lot.
52:27
Speaker 2: We love addendums and cool emails, especially when they're combined.
52:31
Speaker 2: And if you want to send us a cool email,
52:33
Speaker 2: you can send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
52:36
Speaker 2: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
52:43
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