Clockwise from top left: David Geffen and Joni Mitchell, October 1978; Farrah Fawcett, Cary Grant, and Margaux Hemingway, February 1978; Lorna Luft, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote, and Paloma Picasso, June 1979. Background, New Years Eve 1979.

Photographs by Martha Cooper (background), Robin Platzer/Twin Images (Luft), Allan Tannenbaum/SohoBlues.com (Fawcett), Russell C. Turiak (Geffen).

The late, great music mogul Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder and longtime chairman of Atlantic Records, called Studio 54 the greatest club of all time. And this from a man who had spent thousands of hours over several decades at El Morocco and the Copacabana, Annabels in London, and Rgines in Paris. In retrospect, 54 has become the stuff of legend and myth: the Valhalla of Hedonism, the Taj Mahal of Free Love, the Camelot of Nightlife. Like the Kennedy White House, it is a lost paradise never to be found again. Yet its reign as the worlds No. 1 nightclub was brief, from its riotous opening night, in 1977, to the surreal going away party for its creators and impresarios, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, in February 1980a fleeting but unforgettable moment of Pure Fun between the Era of Protest and the Age of Money. Studio 54 was more than a disco, it was a sociological phenomenon and a historical event, which is why it continues to inspire essays, books, TV shows, documentaries, and feature films 40 years after it opened. It was something that could only have happened when it did and where it did: New York in the late 1970s. Getting in was no easy task, so if you did, you felt as much of a star as the movie stars, rock stars, sports stars, political stars, fashion stars, and society stars that were everywhere you turned. As executive editor of Andy Warhols Interview magazine, I was there on a near nightly basis. So much so that I was quoted in Vogue declaring, I live at Studio 54. By the end of those three wild, giddy, divinely mad years, I had a new line: Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco; I left my liver at Studio 54. Fortunately, I survived.

Adapted from the foreword to Studio 54, by Ian Schrager, to be published this month by Rizzoli.

At the 1980 going away party for Studio 54s co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, Diana Ross serenaded the crowd with Come See About Me, from atop the D.J. booth.

Lorna Luft, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote, and Paloma Picasso, June 1979.

Studio 54

Farrah Fawcett, Cary Grant, and Margaux Hemingway, February 1978.

Clockwise from top left: David Geffen and Joni Mitchell, October 1978.

New Years Eve 1979.

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At the 1980 going away party for Studio 54s co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, Diana Ross serenaded the crowd with Come See About Me, from atop the D.J. booth.

Photograph by Richard Corkery/New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images.

Lorna Luft, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote, and Paloma Picasso, June 1979.

By Robin Platzer/Twin Images.

Studio 54

By Dustin Pittman.

Farrah Fawcett, Cary Grant, and Margaux Hemingway, February 1978.

By Allan Tannenbaum/SohoBlues.com.

Clockwise from top left: David Geffen and Joni Mitchell, October 1978.

By Russell C. Turiak.

New Years Eve 1979.

By Martin Cooper.

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Why Studio 54 Still Lives on in Our Imaginations - Vanity Fair