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April 26: Modern Gomorrah

lawrencebush
April 26, 2011

Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 on this date in 1977 with a party that included Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Cher, Martha Graham, Salvador Dali, and a whole bunch of other celebrities (among those turned away at the door by the club’s trademark crowd-control bouncers were Woody Allen and Frank Sinatra). The disco became synonymous with decadence, drugs, sexual license, and snobbery, and was a key symbol of the “me-decade” of the 1980s until it closed in 1986 (with a final party called “The End of Modern-Day Gomorrah”). Rubell was a failed dental student and closeted gay man who went to jail for a year, along with his silent partner Schrager, for tax evasion; they earned their freedom by naming other club owners who were dodging taxes, too. He died of AIDS in 1989.

“[W]e want everybody to be fun and good-looking.” --Steve Rubell