From a Gentleman’s Journal article (March 26, 2020):

Studio 54. You had to be there. And even if you were, you’d scarcely believe it. Studio 54! The club that changed nightlife forever, where the crowds were so big they had to call in the fire brigade, where the brightest stars of the 1970s — Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones and Andy Warhol, to name a handful …

Schrager and Rubell achieved an all-American comeback. The duo stormed back into Nightworld with Palladium, another runaway hit of a club, and Morgans, their first hotel. “It took off like a bat out of hell,” Schrager says. (One of his favorite memories of opening day is Andy Warhol with his nose pushed up against the window, waiting anxiously for the door to open.)

Morgans, and then the Royalton, followed by the Paramount, were the boutique hotels that invented the boutique hotel — a design and business paradigm that has thousands of imitators today.

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Ian Schrager (born July 19, 1946) is an American entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, often associated with co-creating the “boutique hotel” category of accommodation. Originally, he gained fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54.