Do we need to ban Gays holding hands to get the Studio 54 energy back in NYC? Sounds like there has indeed been some "social change", but I get what you're saying. Nightlife is simply not raw or gritty anymore. Perhaps Studio provided the bastion of expression and freedom that was lacking outside, and people were ready to explode with energy once inside.  

Technology is also to blame. Now that everyone has a camera of some sort on them at all times (and, weirdly, think their and their friends going out is interesting enough to warrant a photo roll), no one really ever lets loose for fear of damning pictures turning up the next day. And don't even get me started on the fact that every idiot you see at a bar or club, ostensibly to have a good time, spends half the night staring into the neon glow of their cellphones as if the screen held the cure to cancer.  

its websites like guestofaguest that are providing such intensive coverage of every venue and event that patrons of nightlife aren't able to act and behave as they chose. theres always a camera or ears and eyes watching every step of someone "important or somewhat press worthy" to fuel the morning gossip the internet and media has ruined social life in its entirety  

Oh if only guestofaguest was the cause of all nightlife ills! Note: one our first muses was Bungalow 8, a spot that banned cameras. We try to work a fine balance between reporting and covering those things and people that want to be covered, while respecting the privacy of those who wish to remain outside of the limelight. If someone is going to spend $160k at Avenue, well, they prob are going to make headlines (note p6 has been around for decades). In the aggregate, I would posit that GofG has brought much-needed exposure and coverage to venues that might have otherwise gone unnoticed in their first 6 months in NYC, and succumbed to the great recession of 2008-2009.  

"I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over."-Karl Lagerfeld ...I'm just saying  

Agreed Phantom Face. Back during Studio 54 I'm sure the olds were whining about what it was like during the factory people days. In 5 years we'll be bitching that Boom Boom is nothing but B&T. You're nobody in New York until someone says you're over.  

No one is criticizing here. The original article I commented on stated that Boom Boom Room is comparable to Studio54. There simply isn't any. Back then, we had at least 600 of the top 10000 most noteworthy people in the world attend, plus another 1200 "A" listers, 7 nights a week. And, we were serving breakfast to half of them @ 9am!!! Today, any place is lucky to have relative to its size that amount in a week at best. Madonna, for example, was there~so what? She's a social butterfly anyway and goes to many openings. Nightlife today is as best as it can be in some cases, perhaps like Boom or Bungalow, given the circumstances in which we live~the scrutiny of the media, social climate(e.g. "just say no", "don't ask, don't tell", etc), cost of living, drunk driving, AIDS, and on and on. This is not to say that it is not worth going out~heck I still do, even at my age. But, the decadence that existed inside Studio was just a response to what was acceptable behavior at that time and that social climate simply does not exist now in the same measure. The "energy" is therefore not the same either. Those were the two comparisons that were made~celebrity attendance and energy. Neither are even close for a variety of reasons. What I would suggest is that each of you go out a year from now and ask 100 people on the street if they have heard of Boom Boom Room; then ask if they have ever heard of Studio54. See what you response you get. I would suggest that 9 out of ten will answer affirmatively for the latter even 24 years after we closed.  

it mite also be worth mentioning that those inside study 54 clearly looked at the party inside as one giant party. in our time that's completely untrue. if i was to just walk up to a group of random people and pull out some drugs and just offer it to them, most would turn it down, turn up their noses, think i was trying to drug them and report me to security. there is no interaction between groups of people anymore that don't know each other and will never see each other again, which makes no sense to me. what do you have to fear of dancing with some random person inside a club unless you are at some shittie spot like porky's? i don't think gofg or cameras are really to blame here, i think people think they are too good for anyone else they don't know, so they refuse to have fun, thus why people end up on their cell phones half the night. i personally want the one giant party scene, something that i've only found at rehab in vegas (cliched as that might sound) where there are just 1000s of people drinking, doing drugs and just partying in the pools without a care in the world. how many cameras are inside that place? shit they even have a weekly show on it or at least did if memory serves me. but do we really have to go to vegas to let loose? and if so whats the point of even going out to places on 27th n 28th, when you'd be better off going to union dive bars in tribeca and just raging, playing classic rock and disco tracks off the jukebox and interacting with Vietnam vets who roll joints sitting at the bar and offer to smoke them with you on the street in front of bouncers who dont care.