Stayin’ alive in Brooklyn
40 years after Travolta filmed there, ‘Fever’ house is...
It happens maybe once a year. Julia Ashirova gets a knock at the door of her Brooklyn home, only to find a stranger standing there wanting to know if this is, in fact, “the house.”
The most recent was a man delivering laundry. He handed over the bundle of clothes, then paused on the front stoop before asking, “Is this where it was filmed?”
Ashirova said yes and invited him to have a look around. The star-struck man was allowed to wander the ground floor.
“He loved it,” Ashirova told The Post. “He said, ‘You’ve made my day.’ ”
New York City is not short on filming locations. But 221 79th St. in Bay Ridge is special because it served as the onscreen residence of local hero Tony Manero — played by John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.”
The movie celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and it remains a New York City classic, in no small part due to its realistic portrayal of outer-borough denizens who rarely feature in Hollywood. Manero works at a local hardware store and lives with his strict, working-class Italian family — his only escape is nights out at a local dance club.
“The movie . . . put Bay Ridge on the map. When people talk about the history of [the neighborhood], the fact that the movie was shot here always comes into play,” said Ted General, a trustee at the Bay Ridge Historical Society, who has lived in the area his whole life.
Ashirova, a Russian transplant, bought the one-family home with her then-boyfriend in 2005, in part because of the address’ Hollywood history. (The couple has since split.)
“He was in love with that movie,” Ashirova said of her ex. “His relatives told me [that as a child] he would close the door to his bedroom and copy the dance moves from the movie.”
Ashirova, who owns a financial company, was a reluctant convert. “Because he had been torturing me with it since we met, I basically had to fall in love with it,” she said. After they bought the circa-1920 house, the couple made renovations, changing the floor plan and adding a Tudor-style exterior.
Ashirova did preserve period details on the first floor. While the wallpaper in the dining room has changed, the framework molding and built-ins, including a china cabinet, look exactly as they did in the scene where a combative Manero family dinner ends with Tony whining about his dad messing up his hair.
But Ashirova is considering selling the place. (The city assesses the home’s value at nearly $1.5 million.) “It would be nice to put it in someone’s hands who wouldn’t ruin the antique part of the house,” she said.
She added that prospective owners shouldn’t be scared off by “Saturday Night Fever” fans — it’s not like it was 40 years ago. Back then, according to General, “after the movie came out, [the thenowner] was always being bothered by people ringing her doorbell or hanging around.”
A superfan with a deep wallet can snap up another piece of “Fever” history — the iconic light-up dance floor on which Travolta performed his disco moves goes up for auction June 26 through 28. Predicted winning bid? Between $1 million and $1.5 million.