Now, 45 years later, Keehnen is documenting the tales of the parties remembered, despite many stories lost to a night of cocktails, a devastating epidemic, and the wrecking ball. Dugan’s eventually became known as “The Home of the Bearded Lady.”
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“After all these years of repression, people were just ready to party,” says LGBTQ grassroots historian Owen Keehnen, “and they partied like no generation before them.” Some arrived in costume, others rushed to the safety of the Bistro bathrooms to prepare their looks for the Christmas party, featuring a large tree hanging upside down from the ceiling beside an upside down Santa or the “Roman Orgy party,” filled with men in G-strings and giant palm branches or the circus night with wild caged animals. It drew police harassment starting from its opening weekend.ĭugan’s Bistro decked out for its sixth anniversary party in 1979 Credit: courtesy Daniel Goss When Eddie Dugan opened his club at Hubbard and Dearborn, across the street from a police station, he intended to attract the most flamboyant gay crowd. The cops were looking for ways to arrest gays on public indecency charges, but with politically mobilized queer groups like Gay Liberation and Mattachine Midwest backing them, the queens were free to dance. Same-gender dancing had recently been decriminalized in Chicago. It was a time of new liberation for the queer community, and River North was known for its glamorous gay nightlife. But the one star they were almost guaranteed to see was Bob Theiss, better known as the Bearded Lady. Though it opened in 1973, four years before the iconic New York club, Dugan’s Bistro in River North became known as the Studio 54 of the midwest, attracting appearances from Bette Midler, Diana Ross, John Waters, Andy Warhol, among many others, and often as a surprise to the bar’s patrons.
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