SCHENECTADY — Every time Frank Popolizio mentions the Aerodrome, he seems to find an old friend.

More than four decades after a partnership between a New York City dress manufacturer and a Rochester lawyer converted a 32-lane bowling alley into a booming nightclub, Popolizio still encounters people who remember him as the jack-of-all-trades who brought sandwiches to the stars.

And when they do make the connection, it’s like they’re momentarily taken back to the days when the psychedelic lights ignited the booming counter-culture sounds pulsing through the building during the late 1960s.

“When you run into someone from the Aerodrome, there’s love there,” he reflected. “The minute you say Aerodrome, you’ve got their attention.”

From when it opened in 1968 until it was shuttered four years later, the Aerodrome hosted some of the premier rock-and-roll acts of the time. From the raspy voice of Janis Joplin to the thundering guitar riffs of Led Zeppelin, the short-lived venue on State Street left a lasting impression upon the adolescents and young adults who faithfully crowded around its stage each weekend.

Now Popolizio is trying to create a virtual memorial for the club in an effort to keep its memory vibrant. Last month, he published an advertisement soliciting photos, concert tickets and memorabilia for a Web site and chat base he plans to dedicate sometime before next month.

“That’s our goal,” he said of the tribute. “To have a lot of interaction with the people that were there.”

The club was originally founded by a partnership of Nat Rubin and Jack Herman, who purchased the block-long Woodlawn Lanes for their venture. At 25,000 square feet, it was among the largest nightclubs in the area and capable of drawing crowds in excess of 3,000 people.

The Aerodrome quickly asserted itself as the epicenter of the Capital Region’s hippie movement. Soon, the stage was hosting Chicago Transit Authority, Jeff Beck, Jefferson Airplane, the Velvet Underground and even blues legend B.B. King.

Popolizio was just 17 when he applied to work at the Aerodrome with his brother and cousins. But he lied about his age and was soon busing tables in the joint during its first year of business.

“It was the hottest thing since popcorn,” said Popolizio, who later opened the Drome Sound music store next door.

Priceless memories

Before long, Popolizio was doing just about everything under the sun — from mixing drinks at the bar to standing in as a gopher to the stars. Though he insists all his moments at the club were memorable, his fondest recollections stem from the late evening he spent with the legendary Joplin, doing whisky shots at a nearby bar before she was scheduled to perform.

“She was different,” he recalled of the singer, a broad smile forming on his face. “She was definitely wild.”

Like Popolizio, Kevin Bartlett picked up a job at the Aerodrome after forging his age. At the time, he was a 15-year-old student at Albany’s Milne School who spent his nights operating the club’s state-of-the-art lighting.

Most evenings, he’d hitch a ride with the procession of hipsters flocking to the club for shows. Many times, he’d arrive back home just in time for school in the morning, bleary-eyed but thoroughly satiated by his experience — the glamorous women, the wild time, the nonstop sound of rock and roll.

“It was like going to the circus every night,” he said. “It was like watching history.”

And the memories: Bartlett recalled sitting in a small room with King as he told the famous story about how his guitar got the name Lucille; or the late evening when members of the Jeff Beck Band teamed with Zepplin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page to reduce a stageside Pepsi machine to rubble; and the nights he’d watch pretty women mysteriously vanish after walking by the dressing-room door.

“The door would open, an arm would come out and the woman would go in,” he said.

Julie Jenick was a self-described groupie of the Aerodrome at the time. She fondly recalls the nights she’d grab her Brownie Instamatic camera, jumping in a car with a good friend and driving 15 miles to the club from Amsterdam.

“They played all the latest hits that were out at the time and it was the place to be,” she said. “You looked forward to it on a Friday or Saturday night.”

Tony Cichy had slightly different memories of the Aerodrome. At the time, he was a clean-cut Navy man forced out of a job at American Locomotive just seven weeks after he left the service.

When he applied at the Aerodrome, he was quickly hired to man the door. Even though he didn’t necessarily fit the brand of booze and drug-filled mayhem unfolding at the club, he still fondly remembers the Aerodrome’s after-hours parties, where the staff and musical acts would crank up the action into the wee hours of the morning.

“There was always someone to play the guitar and someone on the drums . . . then somebody would hit the sound system,” he said. “It was fun.”

Coming to an end

But the fun didn’t last. The Aerodrome dimmed the lights for the last time in 1972.

Nobody knows for certain why the club closed. Popolizio said Rubin, the active owner and money behind the venue, fell critically ill and was forced to close it for good, while Cichy claims the club was a tax write-off that ultimately made too much money to be worth the effort. Others suggested trouble with the state Liquor Authority ultimately led to the club’s demise.

The building itself wasn’t long for Schenectady and eventually faced the wrecking ball. Today, all that remains of the legendary club are a scattering of concrete on the edge of what is now the parking lot of an Aldi supermarket.

“See these pillars?” Popolizio said from the lot recently. “That’s the Aerodrome.”