25, several Dallas policemen arrived, ordering Dougherty to stay where he was and not to interfere. 24, and Streisand and Summer’s defiant “Enough is Enough” was thumping through the speakers as patrons formed a conga line, laughing and singing along as they bunny-hopped through the club. And in a matter of weeks, the nation’s first reports of a mysterious and deadly disease spreading within the gay community would change everything forever.Įrnie Dougherty was staffing the Village Station’s front door that night, on Oct. Just two weeks later, the Iranian hostage crisis would begin, facilitating Ronald Reagan’s election victory and a hard shift right politically. They didn’t know it was the twilight of an era. Others contemplated checking out the Hidden Door, a new bar holding its grand opening the next night. Some compared notes on the “March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights” held the week before. The typical mid-week clientele danced to Donna Summer’s “Dim All the Lights” and Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” while nursing 10-cent draft beers. It was the last Wednesday of October 1979 at the Village Station, a popular gay disco that had opened at the corner Cedar Springs and Throckmorton barely four months earlier. A sign at the door of the Village Station proudly proclaimed the bar to be “gay-owned and gay-operated.” (Courtesy of The Dallas Way)
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