A homeless man became a fixture at Studio 54 — without ever stepping in the club

A homeless man nicknamed "Rikers" turned infamous at Studio 54.
Joe DeMaria/NY Submit

A part of the storied historical past of Studio 54 contains somebody who by no means stepped foot contained in the membership as a visitor.

The homeless man, who used to hang around exterior and generally hailed taxis for company, was a “good man,” one former employee mentioned.

“We’d ship him on errands” and provides him suggestions, mentioned Chuck Garelick, head of safety at Studio. “He was at all times … consuming Budweiser tallboys.”

“New Yorkers might inform he was a road man. Vacationers, most likely not,” Garelick mentioned.

Within the winter, he would disappear for weeks at a time.

“And we’d go, ‘The place have been you?’ And he’d go, ‘Rikers, I wanted to get heat.’ He would break a window or do one thing the place he knew he’d get 30 days,” Garelick, 64, mentioned.

That earned him the nickname “Rikers.”

One evening, in the summertime of 1977, a Texan confirmed up on the entrance door.

“This man had on the Western shirt, the large silver belt buckle, cowboy hat, and he was with a big-haired blonde,” he mentioned. The cowboy tried to bribe his means inside, to no avail.

However he returned 20 minutes later, asking for the “valet.”

The person was dubbed “Rikers” due to his journeys to the infamous NYC jail.

Dan Brinzac/NY Submit

“A man came visiting earlier than, I gave him my key and he parked my Caddy,” he mentioned.

However the membership didn’t have valet service.

Garelick, determining who was behind the ruse, ran to the close by parking storage and located the Texan’s purple Cadillac Eldorado convertible.

“Who’s handed out within the entrance seat with a can of beer in his hand? Rikers.”