On a Saturday night in 1979, John Travolta as Tony Manero gave the whole world disco fever on the lit-up dance floor in Odyssey, a club on 802 64th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
That fever also hit Eddie Freeman who had come to New York City twenty years earlier from his family’s tobacco and corn farm in North Carolina. However, Eddie had no intentions of following the family’s tradition of farming.
Back in North Carolina he used to be at the club every night. So when he arrived to New York City he decided to open his own disco, in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
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Eddie saved his money by driving gypsy cabs and working at the post office, until he found a small spot on 615 Dekalb Avenue, and over the next two years, he assembled the place little by little.
On a Saturday night, November 17, 1979, Eddie finally opened the doors to Sugarhill Club in one of his white suits with flared legs.
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The flyer read, “A Disco Party & Buffet with the latest in Disco Lighting, Lit-up Dance Floor and Star Burst.”
The club was just one long room with a bar in the front, a dance floor in the middle and chairs in the back that lined the walls.
“We used to have a line all around the corner of Nostrand” Eddie recalls. Eight years later Eddie bought the old paint shop on the corner so he could expand Sugarhill Club and established the restaurant Sugarhill Supper Club on the first floor.
Some of the people who were allowed to skip the line were Mike Tyson, a good friend of Eddie’s son Aaron, Hillary Clinton and Mary J. Blige who loved the club so much, she offered to become an investor.
“I didn’t need money then,” says Eddie, who has never had any business partners.
Today in the midst of a hard-felt recession, he might reconsider. Yet 32 years and two wives after Sugarhill’s opening, the club is still standing.
“I still dance disco,” Eddie says. And apparently, so do others.
On October 29 Eddie’s throwing a ‘Super Fly 70s Party” at Sugarhill Bar and Club.
However, not everything is retro. In 2009, Eddie and his son Aaron opened up Sugar Land, in the back yard, where his son hosted parties, birthdays, funeral events and brunches. Sugar Land has been Aaron’s project, and both of them agree it has been a success.
Eddie would like to see his son take over Sugarhill to give himself more time to spend at his home in the Catskills – maximum three days though, Eddie jokes; he still needs a party.
And if you’re looking for a bonafide old-school bar or a good old-fashioned party, you might want to stop through Sugarhill and see what they’ve got cooking.
But don’t forget to ask for Eddie. Most likely, you’ll find him right at the bar, where he has been sitting since Sugarhill’s opening in 1979, sipping his signature drink, “The Eddie Special.”
