The New Studio 54

New York’s Boom Boom Room is the new exclusive nightspot for celebrities, fashionistas, and socialites. Jacob Bernstein on André Balazs’ pleasure den. VIEW OUR GALLERY.

The opening of the 18th floor at New York’s Standard Hotel in September drew everyone from Demi Moore to Calvin Klein. A few weeks later, Madonna hosted a party for Valentino at which her boyfriend, Jesus Luz, took to the turntables. Models like Lily Cole and Agyness Deyn turn up regularly. And when Bono and Mick Jagger needed a nightcap after their performance at the 25th anniversary concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is where they came.

Click Image Below to View Our Gallery of the Boom Boom Room

Says Vanity Fair contributor Bob Colacello, a Studio 54 regular and a frequent guest at parties at Balazs’ new pleasure den, “You’re in this big circular room with incredible views, there are those terrific columns, it’s beautifully designed. Other places like Bungalow 8 and the Beatrice Inn, they’re funky and cozy and downtowny, the people who frequented those places were glamorous, but the atmosphere itself was kind of makeshift. This is spectacular without being garish or over the top. It doesn’t feel like Las Vegas. It feels like Manhattan high style, updated and done in a new way.”

“I could move in and not leave,” says socialite Marjorie Gubelmann. “It has the most magical feeling—the lighting, the view, the crowd. It’s like the clubs in the '80s.”

Even the drama to get in is a throwback to another era, before bottle service became the centerpiece of the nightlife industry and AmEx black cards turned into the preferred form of ID around town.

The bulk of the 18th floor’s regulars are there because they’re social connectors who were placed in a database by Balazs. Each of these people has their phone number stored there and is caller ID'd when they make reservations. When guests call (preferably several hours in advance), a woman on the other end of the line asks what time the reservation is for, then takes a callback number and goes to the maitre d’ for approval. (Presuming he answers in the affirmative, there does appear to be some flexibility about the arrival time. Attendees generally aren’t held to a strict schedule, the way they are at, say, the Vanity Fair Oscar party.)

When the 18th floor first opened, it was officially called the Boom Boom Room, a reference both to the old jazz clubs from which its design was inspired and from the exhibitionistic quality of the windows. (Hotel guests have been known to put on sex shows.) Sadly, a San Francisco club apparently had a copyright on that name, so for the time being, the room is just called the 18th floor.

No matter: Among the sorts of people who frequent the place, not having a name just adds to its mystique.