For 33 months, Studio 54 was the American bacchanal, an unprecedented mix of glamorous sophistication and primal hedonism. The brainchild of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the club opened in a onetime CBS soundstage on April 26th, 1977, and immediately became the epicenter of nightlife in New York City – and the world. The sex, drugs and disco on offer at Studio 54 served as the perfect release for a generation raised under the pressures of Watergate and the Vietnam War. Though the club was ultimately destroyed by vice and greed, its short reign defined the flashy exuberance of the late Seventies, before the scourge of AIDS ended the party forever.
-Rolling Stone
