The first Danceteria was opened at 252 West 37th Street by German expatriate Rudolf Piper and talent booker
Jim Fouratt. It catered to a diverse after-hours crowd coming from the downtown rock clubs
Mudd Club, Trax,
Tier 3, Chinese Chance,
CBGB, and gay discos. backstage at Danceteria in 1983 In October 1980, the New York liquor licensing authorities raided Danceteria, and 35 employees were arrested for selling liquor without a license. Less than a month later, the club was shut down again for liquor code violations. In 1982, John Argento hired Fouratt and Piper to promote and book the talent for what became the 21st Street Danceteria. The club operated out of the first three floors in an old industrial 12-story building. (Later the 4th floor was used as Congo Bill, and the abandoned fifth floor was once used as a performance space by
Karen Finley.) The roof was also open in the warmer months as Wuthering Heights, bar and barbecue. The club opened to massive crowds and critical acclaim. Three months after opening, Argento and Piper dismissed Fouratt and hired
Ruth Polsky as the club's talent booker. Under Polsky's direction, the club became renowned as one of the centers of
new wave music in New York and was frequented by many musicians and artists who became famous during the decade, such as
Madonna,
New Order,
Duran Duran,
Billy Idol,
Sade,
Wham!,
R.E.M.,
the Smiths,
Squeeze,
Cyndi Lauper,
Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Keith Haring,
Run-DMC,
Depeche Mode,
Butthole Surfers,
The Fall,
the B-52's,
Samhain,
Bauhaus,
RuPaul,
Phoebe Legere,
Berlin,
Units,
Romeo Void,
Sonic Youth,
Swans,
Stephen Merritt,
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,
the Cult,
Karen Finley,
Violent Femmes,
Soft Cell,
the Jesus and Mary Chain,
Gene Loves Jezebel,
Beastie Boys,
LL Cool J, and
Rob Zombie.
Haoui Montaug worked as a doorman at Danceteria. In 1984, Argento and Piper opened a successful Hamptons outpost of Danceteria in
Water Mill, New York. This was the first trendy NYC-style nightclub to open in the Hamptons. The third Danceteria operated from 1990 to 1993 in a run-down midtown space, the
Martha Washington Hotel at 30 East 30th Street. In 2008, the 21st Street location was sold, to be converted to luxury condominiums. In 2021,
Rafe Gomez launched Danceteria REWIND, a weekly two-hour livestream mix show on
Twitch. Danceteria REWIND re-creates the unique multi-genre soundtrack that defined the Danceteria experience. It's consistently been Twitch's most globally viewed stream in the Music category in its timeslot, and is among Twitch's most viewed and followed weekly two-hour DJ mix streams. ==References==