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And yet those who regularly made it past the legendary velvet rope recall their nights there with an immediacy that makes that carefree, faraway time seem like yesterday. Barnum types from Brooklyn,” as a veteran New York scene-maker put it-opened Studio 54 in a former CBS television studio on West 54th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and began their delirious reign as the absolute monarchs of Manhattan nightlife. Next year, two decades will have elapsed since Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager-“two P. Remember the fountain that was a block away, in front of one of those big new office buildings on Seventh Avenue? We used to go swimming there after 54-we’d just flip off our shoes and dive in.” I’d duck down so they couldn’t see me, but they’d run after the car anyway! Oh, God, we had such good times. I used to go to dance, but then all these men would chase after you because you were dancing. Simpson made a pass at me at Studio 54,” says Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowski, a star beauty of the 70s. More often than not, you’d leave 54 accompanied.” You could go in jeans or in black-tie, and if you were in black-tie you could still pick up cute boys in jeans. It existed in a time when it was hip to be glamorous. And I went there with all kinds of people, from clones to socialites.
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They re-created Peking, and people were carried about on palanquins-it was really over the top. “I remember the birthday party for Michael Chow there. “I used to go with Tina Chow,” says photographer David Seidner. If you missed a night, Andy would say, ‘You missed the best night.’ And if he hadn’t been there, he’d be on the phone the first thing in the morning, wanting to know who was there.” Andy would be ensconced on a couch with Bianca and Halston. It was like going to another Factory, because you’d see everyone from the office-Fred Hughes, Catherine Guinness, Chris Makos-every night, all night. “And I’d just walk in, and it felt so good-all those people staring and waving and taking pictures of everyone who got in, thinking if you got in you must be somebody. “I loved getting out of a cab and seeing those long lines of people who couldn’t get in,” says Brigid Berlin, one of Andy Warhol’s Factory workers. “I would have dinner with my children, put on my cowboy boots, take my Mercedes, park in the garage next door, go in for a couple of hours, find someone, and leave.” ‘I had more fun at Studio 54 than in any other nightclub in the world,” says designer Diane Von Furstenberg.