At the height of the disco boom in 1977, Levan was offered a residency at the Paradise Garage. Although owner Michael Brody—who employed Levan at the defunct Reade Street in 1976, where he "developed the techniques as well as the sound – the deep, dark bass, the queasy, dubby emotion that he would extract from records – that would make him a legend"—intended to create a downtown facsimile of Studio 54 catering to an upscale white gay clientele, the new venue initially drew an improbable mix of streetwise blacks, Latinos, and punks after a disastrous opening night alienated the target demographic; according to Mel Cheren of West End Records, Brody's former companion and a silent partner in the venture, "The sound equipment got stuck in a blizzard at an airport in Louisville, Kentucky. And people were kept outside in 17-degree weather. Some of them never came back... the club didn't really take on the atmosphere that people remember it for until 1980."