The opening of Nell's was both a downtown launch party and a test of whether a cover charge could turn a disco into something more exclusive. Andy Warhol had already warned that charging admission might put off downtown regulars without making the club a private establishment. At the opening, the fee was set at $5, and the question remained unresolved: would the scene accept a price of entry, or resent it?

Plans, Price, and the Club's Identity

Before the opening, Keith McNally, associated with The Odeon restaurant, asked Warhol and his companions for their opinions on the food and whether admission should cost $15 or $5. Warhol predicted that downtown people would resent paying. In his view, the charge alone would not make Nell's a private club; the place would simply become a disco. The downstairs space looked to him like a firetrap, an unflattering practical judgment amid the plans for a glamorous new venue.

That assessment gave the opening a distinct stake beyond the party itself. Nell's was trying to position itself between a broadly accessible downtown nightspot and a more selective club, but Warhol doubted that a cover charge could create that distinction. When the club opened, admission was $5. The price had been chosen, though whether downtown regulars would accept it was still an open question in his account.

From Dinner to the Opening

The evening began with dinner at Le Bernardin, arranged by Steven Greenberg after Paige said the opening was taking place. Warhol found the restaurant grand and elegant but thought the food ordinary for its high price; his fish, cooked in sauerkraut, reminded him of a hot dog. The dinner’s cost and formality set one kind of luxury against the less settled downtown atmosphere awaiting them at Nell's.

After dinner, the group picked up Donna McKechnie, who was back in A Chorus Line and giving an interview to Frank Rich. Warhol considered her beautiful and sweet, while also reflecting on the difficulty of finding another dance role for a forty-four-year-old performer, even one with a beautiful body. They then continued to the club on 14th Street, where the opening itself struck him as genuinely exciting.

Guests, Dancing, and the Camera

The opening drew people Warhol associated with the Odeon crowd and its wider social orbit. Bianca Jagger and Lauren Hutton were there, along with Julian Schnabel; Paige went downstairs to dance with Benjamin, Schnabel, and Alba Clemente. Peter Beard arrived with an entourage. The gathering mixed familiar downtown figures with the celebrity and fashion-world company that made a new venue immediately legible as a social destination.

Nell Campbell, the hostess, told Warhol that he alone would be allowed to take photographs. The permission suited his place in the room, but he did not feel like moving around to use it. That small contrast—exclusive access to the camera, little inclination to wield it—keeps the entry from reading as a simple catalogue of guests. Warhol registered who was present and where the crowd gathered, while remaining an observer rather than the party’s active photographer.

Glamour and the Unsettled Cover Charge

The uncertainty over admission persisted alongside the excitement. Warhol wondered whether downtown people, accustomed to getting in free, would resent the $5 charge. His earlier doubts about the club becoming a private space had not been settled by its opening night; the crowded room demonstrated its immediate appeal, not whether its social identity would hold.

The scene also reflects the wider importance of access and visibility in Warhol's world. By the mid-1970s, Interview magazine had become a source of fresh faces and celebrity attention, replacing the promise of a part in a film with the promise of appearing in print. Warhol’s observations at Nell's likewise attend to who arrives, who dances, who is admitted, and who gets to take pictures. The club’s opening turns those ordinary social distinctions into the evening’s central drama: glamour is present, but its boundaries—and the price of crossing them—are still being negotiated.