Coming of age in the disco era 1970s, even as a kid, I knew about the cool clubs where people dressed fly and boogied the night away to the pulsating sounds of Donna Summer, Van McCoy and The O’Jays, hustling across dance floors as the strobe lights twirled above their heads. Indeed, from the Brady Bunch singing “Shake Your Booty” on their variety show to the film Saturday Night Fever to the countless articles and news features about Studio 54, disco was everywhere.

Though the music was made primarily by Black and Latino artists, the media focused mostly on the white folks and their venues. It wasn’t until the early 1980s when I was a New York City club kid that I learned about Black owned and managed venues such as Justine’s and Leviticus, and went to both places to party. However, beyond seeing various names on club invites, I had no idea who was in charge of making the nights flow smoothly, maintain the perfect vibe and handle problems in a flash.

New York City club promoter, events coordinator and restaurant owner Harold A. Dow, who alongside his now deceased twin brother Norman, began working professionally in the late-‘70s and stayed in the game for decades. Having started in the business quite by accident after throwing a party while students at St. John’s University, simply hoping to make enough money to buy a new three-part stereo system, their success led the way to careers for them and others who were fortunate to be part of the team.

In his wonderful memoir The Dow Twins’ Legacy: 50 Years of Disco Reflections, Harold A. Dow writes vividly about those golden yesteryears when their parties were the place to be. Indeed, though many people thought that by the 1980s we had overcome, in Manhattan many clubland owners and door people were racist and practiced their own form of Jim Crow when it came to Black people gaining entry. Even when allowed, Black folks were viewed as suspects. I clearly remember me and my friend Paul getting thrown out of a white club called The Underground after they accused us of being drug dealers; we were just college students, but that didn’t stop them from treating us like criminals.

Of course, that never would’ve happened to us at a Dow Twins event. Natives of Queens, the Dow boys were raised in a middle-class neighborhood where they had a loving family and a supportive community. With both parents at home, the boys attended Catholic schools throughout their academic lives. Their dad died a few weeks after Martin Luther King in 1968, which was why they chose to stay in Queens to attend college.

“Norman and I had originally planned to enroll at Howard University in Washington, D.C.,” Dow writes. “Given the circumstances, however, we decided that we could not abandon our mother at this crucial time. We chose instead to remain at home and attend St. John’s University.”

Majoring in computer programming, after graduation they were both offered jobs at I.B.M., but chose instead (with their mother’s approval) to follow their dreams. Though they started small building their guest lists and connections, the twins were soon recruited by a group of Black entrepreneurs known as The Best of Friends (TBOF) who owned Justine’s and Leviticus.

While the latter was the “buppie” spot for grown folks with jobs, The Friends hired The Twins to help turn Justine’s into a more college oriented crowd. Back then the drinking age was 18, so that wasn’t too hard to do.

“Unlike TBOF, however, Norman and I were never that interested on ownership. Instead, we enjoyed going in different spaces and enhancing what the owner had already created. It allowed us to stay fresh; to build a theme around the already existing reputation and aura of a venue and to present it to our folks as something new. Our main objective was to keep our events interesting enough for folks to return to again and again, by creating new ideas and doubling down on the ones that were successful.”

While I spent many nights in various clubs back then, I never knew the hard work that went into running a hot spot. Dow pulls back the curtain, allowing regular folks like us to know the levels of gusto, moxie and professionalism that must be invested into each event.

Not surprisingly, considering this was 1970s/1980s New York, there are a couple of tales of stick-up kids that included one former waiter and two shotgun carrying punks who were taken down by the police before they even got through the door.

In 1985, a few months before Justine’s closed its doors for good, the Dow men opened their Queens restaurant Manhattan Proper Café, later changing the name to simply Proper Café. Bringing a little class to the hood, the brothers became ingrained in the community and earned the respect of even the young men they had to turn away because their wardrobes didn’t match the “no jeans or sneakers” dress code.

They even turned away LL Cool J because he refused to remove his hat. “Do you know who I am?” the rapper asked. They did, but it made no difference. Through it all the bros still held events that included ski vacations, events on the USS Intrepid and a gala party at the legendary Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Not only does this excellent book serve as Harold Dow’s autobiography, but it’s also the perfect guide for young people who might want to get into club promotion and event planning as a profession. Indeed, it takes more than carrying a clipboard to do the job, but as we learn from The Dow Twins’ Legacy: 50 Years of Disco Reflections if you’re willing to put in hard work required the rewards are there.