This is the final part of a five-day Post series marking the 30th anniversary of New York City’s unforgettable summer of 1977.
No one ever accused Tony Manero of trying to save the world.
Like most of the people caught up in the 1970s discomania, the “Saturday Night Fever” character was concerned about one thing, and one thing only – having a good time.
“When this little film became huge, it opened the doors to a lot of people,” said deejay Al Bandiero, who gained fame spinning records at radio station WKTU, which adopted the disco format.
So what if the door was an escape hatch? Disco, with its pulsating beats, techno-rhythms and uber-happy lyrics, took people away from their problems, and in 1977 New York City, there were plenty of problems to go around.
The city was on the brink of bankruptcy. A serial killer was on the loose. Stores were ransacked and looted during a citywide blackout.
New Yorkers needed a distraction, and disco provided the soundtrack.
Young New Yorkers were moving to an increasingly popular sound that would become a full-blown phenomenon, whether it was the 17-minute orgasmic version of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” or “Disco Inferno” by the Trammps.
“I loved the music,” said Dan Ingram, a former deejay at WABC. “I thought it was great. It was nine minutes of something, and you could go to the bathroom before you had to play the next record.”
But like the hip-hop movement that would soon follow, disco was more than the music. It was a culture.
White suits. Wide collars. Big hair. Platform shoes.
“Those days, you couldn’t walk into a club unless you were properly dressed,” Bandiero said.
Oh, yes, the clubs. Sex, drugs, music and a light show all under one roof. Here, anything went – as long as you could get in. In the more popular places, lines snaked around the block.
And no place was more popular than the notorious Studio 54, on Manhattan’s West Side, which opened in April 1977.
Here, shirtless busboys cleared glasses while busty women hung from trapezes above.
At midnight, a wooden sculpture of a man-in-the-moon with a cocaine spoon would be lowered toward the crowd as stagehands directed the spoon toward his nose. Nearby, a metal Aztec sun god spewed smoke beside the 5,400-square-foot dance floor.
During a birthday party for Bianca Jagger, she was led around the dance floor on a white horse by a man and woman with circus costumes painted on their naked bodies.
In the background played the only song appropriate for the occasion, even if it wasn’t exactly a disco tune – “Sympathy for the Devil,” by hubby Mick’s Rolling Stones.
Hedonism on ice, with an imported beer chaser. Celebrities included Halston, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Truman Capote, Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol. Even President Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian, stopped by.
“I don’t know if it was heaven or hell,” the president’s mother said of the experience. “But it was wonderful.”
Through the end of the decade and throughout the city, partygoers, as the O’Jays would say on wax, were “Livin’ for the Weekend.”
Like the John Travolta character whose film debut came at the end of ’77, club regulars trudged through their drab, stress-filled weeks until they were able to voice the words of another popular movie of that era – “Thank God It’s Friday.”
Once in the clubs, they did The Hustle and danced to such tunes as “I Will Survive,” by Gloria Gaynor, “Love’s Theme,” by Barry White, and “Boogie Shoes” by KC and the Sunshine Band.
“A lot of people felt there was no substance to the music,” said Bandiero, who still plays many of the songs from the ’70s on his Sunday-night show on WKTU. “But it was never meant to have substance. Disco music was all about having a good time. It wasn’t about changing the world.”
And, therein lay its demise. Before the new decade dawned, disco was heading downhill fast, mocked and scorned by the very people who created it.
Nowhere was that sentiment more pronounced than at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, where a radio station and the owner of baseball’s White Sox staged a Disco Demolition Night between games of a July 1979 double-header. The event, which featured exploding disco records, ended in a riot and arrests. Damage to the field forced the Sox to forfeit the second game.
Over time, the acrimony subsided, and disco was allowed to enjoy a place of honor in music history. But in 1977, it was still a simple matter of exciting songs and the dance-floor haven they provided from New York’s travails.
“Nothing does better than music to reverse a negative into a positive,” Bandiero said. “This was the escape.”