continued to talk about Woodstock and are still talking about Studio," Schrager says. "People who weren't even born are talking about it."

Model Jerry Hall, Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry and Paloma Picasso were part of a long list of celebrities who frequented Studio 54. Credit: Ullstein Bild via Getty Images

Of those people talking, the loudest is Schrager himself, who has collated photographs, memories and excerpts from his personal scrapbook into a nearly 400-page coffee table book for publishing house Rizzoli. It's a stark turn for Schrager, who spent years refusing interviews about his Studio 54 days, largely due to the shame he felt about his 1980 conviction and jail time, alongside Rubell, for tax evasion.

"It was a long time before I could talk about it, because they are bittersweetmemories for me and I was embarrassed by the way it turned out," Schrager said. "I thought that doing the book was a way for me of encapsulating what happened there for my kids. It kind of brought closure to it."

Closure is also why he sought and was granted a pardon by President Obama in January of 2017. "That's all part of the same thing," he adds.

"Studio 54" the book shines a light on the club's happier -- and wilder -- days. Early in the hefty tome, billionaire businessman David Geffen notes that Studio 54 "came after birth control and before AIDS," allowing space for the freewheeling sexual experimentation that has become synonymous with 1970s decadence.

Designer Norma Kamali, a friend of Schrager's, remembers those days well.

"It began Page