“An exciting evening in Milwaukee ,” the Milwaukee Journal wrote back in 1967, “is supposed to consist of inviting the neighbors over to share a six pack while watching ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’” Few major American cities, the paper contended, were considered “squarer” than the beer, bowling, and be-in-bed-by-ten capital of “Teutonic thriftiness” that was Milwaukee .
So prevalent was this thinking about Milwaukee ’s nightlife that there was an old show business joke that insisted the two slowest weeks in a given year were the week of Christmas and seven days in Milwaukee . But, in the late 1960s, evenings in the Cream City experienced a surprise comeback with the emergence of the discotheque.
Courtesy Flickr user Matte.
Discotheques predated disco music in Milwaukee by nearly a decade. Discotheques – or “discos” – were essentially nightclubs that ditched live music for DJ-spun records blasted out over high-end stereo systems. For many club owners, the transition from live bands to the disco format was a purely financial matter. Writing on the disco craze in 1975, the Journal claimed that the Crazy Horse, 1038 N. Jackson Street , became the city’s first disco in 1963. A number of other clubs followed suit and by the late ’60s, the Journal was praising the city’s reborn nightlife. Even the venerable Safe House was billed as an “adult discotheque” when it opened in 1966, an attempt to convey the image of a more mature spot for dancing to prerecorded music.
As the 1960s drew to a close, rock clubs were gaining in popularity and drawing away some of the young crowd that had flocked to the discos. In 1969, the Cabaret opened, billing itself as “the discotheque built for the modern young man.” Located at 130 E. Juneau (currently home to Village Church), the Cabaret was a new kind of nightspot. Ads boasted that it had “the style of the New York nightlife… fashioned after those East Coast Singles Bars you’ve probably heard of.” The club served high-end liquor and reserved the stools at the bar for “gals.” The Cabaret’s hide-away booths put a sharp point on the undertone of their pitch… this was for men with stylish clothes and cash to spend to get laid. Music and dancing were merely a prelude.
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The mid-1970s ushered in a whole new disco era in Milwaukee . Reviewing local discos in 1975, the Milwaukee Sentinel wrote that the new wave of clubs looked nothing like those of a decade before. The era of the discotheque had made way for DISCO… in fashion, dance, and music. The music was the most notable change, as synthy, beat-driven tunes were taking over Top 40 lists and the radio airwaves. Some clubs that had already dropped the old discotheque format for live rock shows jumped back into the disco game. The Stone Toad, 618 N. Broadway (presently the vacant space next to Downtown Books), dropped its live format to go disco in the early 1970s. “The main reason we went disco is because you can’t get good bands seven nights a week anymore,” Joe Balistrieri, the club’s owner said. “There just aren’t that many good bands around and there sure aren’t any new guys coming up.” The old Beneath the Street club on West Burleigh similarly ditched live rock for disco in the early 1970s, becoming the Milwaukee Underground. Crazy Horse South, located on a stretch of South Second St. that would become a kind of Milwaukee disco mecca, also went back to the disco format around this time, installing the city’s first-ever glass dance floor.
The focus on dancing and music in this new wave of discos made for some very expensive conversions. The operators of Oscar’s Disco Cabaret, at Wells and Milwaukee , invested $80,000 in a pulsating dance floor that featured 600 lights and 20-speaker sound system. In 1973, a massive investment from discount retail tycoon Morry Silberman opened the He & She in the Points Loomis Shopping Center on South Twenty-Seventh Street . The 10,000 square foot club had a computer-operated lighting system and room for 900 dancers. The owners of Teddy’s, a former jazz bar at 1434 N. Farwell Ave (presently Shank Hall), spent $25,000 to redo the place as a disco in 1975.
Glowing dance floors, laser shows coordinated with the music, chrome, mirrors, and brass made these spaces works of modern art and no less was expected from the clientele. Nearly all of the new discos had some kind of dress code, most of which banned t-shirts, sneakers, jeans, and – in the words of the Sentinel – “other casual remnants of hippiedom.”
A big reason for Milwaukee ’s disco boom in the mid-70s was the genre’s popularity within the local gay community. Popular discos like the Baron on East St. Paul Avenue , The River Queen on East Water, and the Circus-Circus on South Second all catered to largely gay clientele. Baron manager Jeffery Dobbs said that the new age of disco emerged from gay culture and – although his club had a good mix of gay and straight dancers – it was the gay community that “did disco” the best. “I can usually breeze through the dance floor and immediately know who’s gay because the straight kids dance like turkeys,” Dobbs told the Journal. “The gay kids are better dancers, are better mannered, and are more hip to clothes.”
Even with this boom of after-hours interest in disco, it was not until the December 1977 release of Saturday Night Fever that disco was elevated into the local mainstream. “Things have really changed since the movie,” one disco regular told the Sentinel. Almost overnight, young Milwaukeeans were emulating John Travolta’s Tony Manero, escaping the mediocrity of their day jobs with the highly-intoxicating fantasy life of the after-hours scene. “We’re selling Disneyland for the big kids,” Dobbs said of the disco life’s appeal.
In 1978, Park Avenue , the city’s most posh and exclusive disco to date, opened in a two-floor space at 500 N Water Street (currently home to Joey Buona’s). The Journal covered its grand opening, noting that city officials, media celebrities, and local models were all on the opening night guest list. Park Avenue operated as a private club, requiring annual dues and enforcing a strict dress code. A code of guest conduct sought to keep the place above the fray as a sophisticated and chic “ New York style” night club. On Sunday nights, Park Avenue catered to the gay community. Renamed “Sundays” for these evenings, special invitation cards were required for admission. The once-a-week competition from the otherwise straight-catering club caused controversy with full-time gay disco operators who did not appreciate the off-brand incursion on their customer base. The club’s exclusive membership list also caused problems. Within a year of Park Avenue ’s opening, at least five racial discrimination complaints had been filed, each alleging that the admission policy for African Americans was much more stringent than that for whites.
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This new level of class for disco in Milwaukee in the post-Fever era also led to the trend showing up in unexpected places. In an attempt to boost sagging bowling attendance numbers, Red Carpet Lanes added “Red Rooster Discos” in each of their local establishments. A disco opened in Sandburg Residence Hall on the UWM campus. PJ’s Circus on W. Brown Deer Road eschewed the high-class angle Park Avenue strove for by offering disco with bikini and wet t-shirt contests and beer-chugging competitions. In 1978 and 1979, the Milwaukee Brewers held disco dancing contests before games. The Greater Milwaukee YMCA offered five different disco dancing classes. The Jewish Community Center also gave disco classes. A disco contest at State Fair even included a senior citizens category.
Just as discos had existed without disco music, dance clubs managed to survive the death of disco as a musical genre. Disco music was about as hip as an evening with the Beverly Hillbillies by the mid-1980s, when many of the old Broadway and Second Street discos were still drawing well-dressed young people. But by then, the death-knell for downtown nightlife was already sounding. Stripped of its retail core and with the old movie houses of Wisconsin Avenue either shuttered or showing smut pictures, fewer and fewer Milwaukeeans were willing to venture downtown to “step out.” Less than 20 years after proclaiming that downtown nightlife had been reborn, the Milwaukee Journal wrote of the area as being largely abandoned after hours. “They roll up the sidewalks on Wisconsin Avenue after the sun sets,” the paper wrote. Through the 1980s, the old discos each shut down their laser and fog shows and locked their doors for good while new clubs that offered dancing and DJs would be “discothèques” in the technical sense only.
