Incredible photos show the heady days of Brooklyn’s Empire Rollerdrome in 1980, where young New Yorkers spun across maple floorboards to the heartbeat of disco beats
- The Empire Rollerdrome was located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for 66 years. In the 1970s, it spawned the roller disco movement that spread across the US
- Photographer Patrick D. Pagnano captured a night at the Rollerdrome in 1980
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In 1980, a photographer was sent to the depths of Brooklyn to capture the cultural phenomenon that unfolded nightly in a building’s 36,000-square-foot warehouse.
Patrick D. Pagnano, who worked for Forbes, traveled with his cameras to the Crown Heights neighborhood, where, just around the corner from where the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field once stood, he slipped into the crowd at the Empire Rollerdrome and began shooting.
There he captured the latest sensation to take the city by storm: New Yorkers, young and old, spinning on maple floorboards, dancing on roller skates to the heartbeat of disco beats under a marquee that proclaimed to be in “the birthplace of the roller disco.” found.
Founded in 1941, the Empire Rollerdrome had spent its 40 years at the intersection of music and dance. The rink’s first sound system was purchased and reused from the 1939 World’s Fair, and by the late 1950s, the owners had started the State Roller Skating Championship, bringing widespread attention to the art of roller skating, according to Another magazine.
By the 1960s DJs at the Rollerdrome were spinning the latest jazz, blues, R&B and soul tunes as the skaters danced on and came up with signature dances, and in the 1970s disco exploded on the rink and it wasn’t long before roller disco was seen all over the country.
But the Empire Rollerdrome has always been home to the movement. The designer behind the music at Studio 54 overhauled the Rollerdrome’s sound system, Cher hosted the release party for her 1979 disco album there, and some of Rollerdrome’s loyal skaters were hired to go to Hollywood to advise on film choreography.
“It was the first time I had been to Crown Heights,” Pagnano said of that night in 1980, according to Huck magazine. “Once I entered the rink, I was transported to another world and I was in my element.”
Forbes never ran the story about the Rollerdrome, and Pagnano’s photos were forgotten in his files as the rink finally closed in 2007. Now memories of the Rollerdrome and Pagnano’s photos have seen the light of day with the release of the book Empire Roller Disco , which, on more than 132 pages, shows the photographer’s snapshots of an American moment.
A man decked out in a cowboy costume dances across the shelves in the Empire Rollerdrome
Empire Roller Disco was released in April and returned to Patrick Pagnano’s lost work
Two men dance on their skates in the crowd at the Empire Rollerdrome in 1980
The Rollerdrome became the capital of skating and dancing to disco music in the 1970s and 1980s
A woman glides by on her skates at the Empire Rollerdrome in 1980 as disco music plays
A crowd of dancers skate to disco music at the Empire Rollerdrome one night in 1980
A skater takes center stage while dancing at the Empire Rollerdrome in 1980
Two women skate by at the Empire Rollerdrome in 1980 as disco music plays
Pagnano was sent to the Rollerdrome by Forbes magazine to capture the dance sensation
A woman makes her way across the floor in the Empire Rollerdrome one night in 1980
The Empire Rollerdrome finally closed its doors in 2007 after opening in 1941