When Disco Was King

For this week's Photo of the Week we are rolling back the clock to 1980 and we're strapping on our skates for a cruise around the dance floor of the Empire Roller Disco on Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights. The indoor rink could accommodate 2,500 skaters and was reportedly so crowded that "if you fell, you didn't fall." 

In February of 1980 Patrick D. Pagnano, the street photographer, was hired by Forbes Magazine to capture that moment. 

“It was the first time I had been to Crown Heights,” he remembers. “Once I entered the rink I was transported to another world and was in my element. The skaters, their talents, enthusiasm, joy and sense of abandonment were inspirational and they enjoyed being photographed and revealing their talents to the camera. I shot this series in one evening of intense involvement in the moment. The session was electric.”

In 1941 Empire Roller Disco opened its doors in a former Ebbets Field garage. Attendance dropped off in the 1950's but it was in the 1970's, with the advent of disco, that it bounced back. Out went the old organ and in went a new sound system blasting Donna Summer. The rink finally closed in 2007 after the building was sold for $4.5 million. It has since become a storage facility which seems a particularly sad fate for what was once such a joyous place. 

While the Roxy ruled Manhattan and the Bronx had the Skate Key, for awhile at least, Brooklyn had Empire.

Long live roller disco! 

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