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"Saturday Night Fever" hit the Rochester area in a big way when Club 747 opened in November 1977.
Many area "discos" at the time were just neighborhood bars with dancing. Club 747, at 2525 West Henrietta Road, was swankier, aiming for a glitzier atmosphere.
The place looked like a 747 jet and was equipped with gear and furnishings from converted jets. Patrons got "boarding passes" to enter through an airplane fuselage door. A disc jockey spun tunes from a sound booth in a cockpit, and big screens showed jets taking off and landing, complete with the realistic, deafening jet engine sound.
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"Club 747 has arrived to give Rochester a taste of big-city disco life," a news article from 1977 said. "The 747 apparently aims to be all class."
Jet-airliner lounge seats lined the sides of the interior. Male employees dressed like pilots and the women wore sexy white outfits. The place was developed by Jim Cosentino of Buffalo, who had opened a Club 747 in Buffalo three years earlier. The Rochester club was bigger, taking seven weeks to build at a cost of $350,000.
The classy disco was an immediate hit. More than 15,000 people showed up in the first three weeks. Club 747 only allowed 595 at a time, so waiting in line becamederigueur. So, too, did dressing up in what was stylish at the time.
"Fridays and Saturdays are still the mob-scene nights, with lines right into the (adjacent) Record Theater," a 1978 news review stated. "They're also the nights you'll see white suits and slinky satin dresses or pantsuits and high heels."
Bill Stiewe of Greece was there six nights a week. Now 59, Stiewe was a dance instructor for the first two to three years after Club 747 opened.
"Those were some fun days," said Stiewe, who now works as an engineer at Rochester Gas & Electric. "Those were some of the best days. Everyone went out to have a good time. The girls were dressed up, big-time. Their dresses were flying in the air. Men had polyester dress shirts and suit jackets."
The pulsating musical beat from bands like The Commodores, Chic and the Bee Gees filled the air. Dancers twirled beneath hundreds of flashing lights. Club 747 was a huge pick-up spot, and hedonism was the name of the game in those days before AIDS changed the dating scene.
"The dance floor was full of hip-shaking, hair twirling and head-bobbing," a 1977 review of the 747 read. "Some were Hustling, some were doing the Worm and still others were doing their own free-form thing. Unique is the ethnic and cross-cultural mix at the Club 747."
The review goes on to state that Club 747 offered a "cosmopolitan mélange" of people, most with the prime concerns being drinking, meeting that one special person, or simply watching everyone else have a good time. By midnight, there was little elbow room on the dance floor or elsewhere."
More full-fledged discos opened here in 1978, including Club 2 on 2 in Brockport and the 2001 Club in Chili-Paul Plaza. Some of the clubs, including 747, opened their doors to underage teens for alcohol-free entertainment on Sundays.
Club 747 closed for a time in the 1980s and reopened in 1985 with a half-million-dollar renovation. The club acquired 3,500 square feet from the neighboring Record Theater and more than doubled the size of the dance floor, according to a news story.
The disco craze had waned, though. Club 747 closed for good by mid-1986, said Bill Levy of Brighton, who installed the original sound system for the 747 and later served as the club's general manager. A Hyundai dealership is now at the site.
Disco wasn't for everyone. But for those who loved the scene, Club 747 was the pinnacle.
"That was the go-to destination," said Mike Dailor of Irondequoit, who deejayed at 747 in its early years.
"Friday and Saturday nights were a given at 747," Stiewe said. "I remember it like it was yesterday."
Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.