students (including Haring, Holliday, Scharf, and Sex), who used it as a playground. “At Club 57 there were drugs and promiscuity — it was one big orgy family. Sometimes I’d look around and say, 'Oh, my God! I’ve had sex with everybody in this room!' It was just the spirit of the times — and it was before AIDS," remembers Scharf. "Everybody there was either living together or sleeping together." Drew Staub agreed. Scharf recalls that "Ann Magnuson may have been twenty-four, but she was like our mom." Jean-Michel Basquiat fell out with Kenny Scharf, in part over Club 57: "esthetically I really hated Club 57. I thought it was silly. All this old and bad shit. I’d rather see something old and good.” Other contributors included Shawn McQuate the Great aka AMMO, dancer, performance-artist and designer. Stacey Elkin and Shawn were known as the fashion designers of the club, and made costumes for many of the Club 57 performers, like Magnuson, Scharf, and model and artist Kitty Brophy. McQuate the Great/Shawn AMMO was John Sex's boyfriend for two years during the early club days. McQuate did several happenings, including having 50 performance artists performing at the same time, in Universal Interaction 1981. Also, Ande Whyland, Robert Carrithers, Minn Thometz-Sanchez and so many others played a vital role in the club's aesthetic. Later years, closure and legacy Ann Magnuson left her position as manager of Club 57 soon after forming the band Pulsallama, and just before being cast in The Hunger with David Bowie." Andy Rees took over, bringing Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. In 1981 Steve Mass of the Mudd Club began showing up at Club 57, and began hiring members of the Club 57 crowd to help acquire part of that scene. Haring was later hired to curate shows at the Mudd Club. Club 57 closed in the early 1980s – "around 1983", according to Magnuson – after the community of artists moved on to larger and more expensive venues, and many concurrently began to suffer from AIDS. Since its closure, the building is now a voluntary not-for-profit behavioral health and primary care clinic. The club was the subject of Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983, an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in 2017. References Notes Further reading Reynolds, Simon: Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, Penguin Books,