ShortHand: Studio 54
RedHanded
RedHanded
4.5 • 19.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Party favours full of drugs, a hose-down rubber sex balcony, and Bianca Jagger on a real horse. It’s often said that the brightest flames burn for the shortest time – and by god did Studio 54 burn bright.
Under the helm of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, 254 West 54th was the single coolest place on the planet – and set the blueprint for exclusive nightclubs to this day. Bowie, Warhol, the Jaggers, and every other celebrity you could think of felt lucky to set foot on its gigantic dance floor.
But what comes up, must come down, and it only took three years for the greatest club on earth to come unstuck. This is the story of sex, drugs, and disco – the rise and fall of Studio 54.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, hello. |
| 0:14.2 | Hello in disco. |
| 0:16.1 | I don't know what that is. |
| 0:17.7 | Me either. |
| 0:19.6 | Nope, my brain's let me down. |
| 0:21.6 | Thanks, brain. |
| 0:23.1 | Fuck. |
| 0:25.1 | Okay. |
| 0:26.6 | If you are ever in New York City and you have done all of the Times Square and |
| 0:31.9 | Sax Fifth Avenue that you can handle, you can take the subway or the bus if you must |
| 0:37.3 | to 57th Street and 7th Avenue station and |
| 0:41.2 | you will be a block and a half from a whole other kind of history 254 west 54th street is now home to |
| 0:50.0 | the cabaret club comedy club blah blah 54 below. Which is a great name. |
| 0:55.7 | It is now a comedy cabaret club, but if those walls could talk, |
| 1:00.4 | you would need to be hosed down. |
| 1:02.6 | Every orifice would need to be sprayed. |
| 1:05.8 | Because that building was once the most culturally impactful nightclub of all time, the totality of the disco era, |
| 1:13.8 | Studio 54. |
| 1:15.4 | The plot is haunted by the ghosts of the most beautiful, glamorous, desperately cool, fashionistas of the 70s. |
| 1:24.1 | And if you listen hard enough, you can still hear the four on the floor bass lines of yore. |
| 1:31.0 | Okay, Brain, thank you for that one. |
| 1:32.6 | I take it back. |
... |
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