The Other Door at The Warehouse (Untold Stories in House Music: S2 E1)

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This is a podcast about house music. I'm thatpodcastgirl, C-Dub, and I'm here to guide us through the untold stories behind the house music. This season, we’re telling the stories that never made the headlines—the quiet ones, the erased ones, the ones still living in the basslines and breakdowns. House music rose out of the wreckage—after disco was declared dead, while AIDS was being ignored, and as Black and queer communities were pushed to the margins. It was protest. It was joy. It was survival. And the people who shaped it weren’t always let in, given credit, or remembered. We’re remembering them now.

In 1977, on the West Loop of Chicago, a man named Robert Williams opened the doors to something rare. A space that would come to mean everything.

It was called The Warehouse.

Williams had moved from New York. He’d spent time at David Mancuso’s Loft and Nicky Siano’s Gallery—spaces where music wasn’t just a soundtrack. It was an offering. A way to hold each other in sound.

When he came to Chicago, he carried that vision with him.

He once said:

 "I didn’t want to open a bar. I wanted a house party that never ended."

 *(Chicago Tribune, 2014)*

He found a building on South Jefferson—three floors, concrete bones, no signage. Just potential. He called his friend Frankie Knuckles. Frankie didn’t just mix records. He shaped mood. His sets built slowly, tenderly. A gospel chord stretched across a disco break. Synths weaving through soul. He played what the room needed—before the room knew it needed it. There was no shouting into the mic. No interruptions. Just music, steady and intentional. The sound didn’t have a name yet. But it was unmistakable. People started calling it house. A nod to where they heard it first. For many, The Warehouse was more than a club. It was where the weight came off. Where you could exhale. 

A dancer once recalled:

"Frankie played like he was watching us—not the other way around. If someone cried in the corner, the next song held them."

*(Chicago House Music Oral History Project)*

But that wasn’t everyone’s experience.

Some people never made it past the door.

There were quiet rules. About how you looked. Who you knew. Whether you matched the room.

One man wrote:

"I stood outside The Warehouse in ’81 and watched the guy in front of me go in. The door shut behind him. I didn’t get in. That rejection stayed with me—but it also made me start something else."

*(Out & Proud Archive, Chicago)*

For those turned away, something else had to be built. New spaces began to open. Not spin-offs. Not alternatives. Their own worlds. Places like the Power Plant. The Bismarck. The Music Box.

Sometimes you heard about the party through a friend. Sometimes it was a flyer taped to a pole, already half torn. A back room. A storage space. A dancefloor that wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

The Music Box, in particular, held something raw. The ceilings dripped with condensation. The walls throbbed. The air was soaked with sweat and smoke.

One dancer said:

"The ceiling would drip. The walls would shake. You couldn’t fake it. You had to move, or leave."

*(Black LGBTQ Archives, Spelman College)*

Another remembered:

"It was the first time I saw a man scream during a breakdown. Not because he was scared—but because he needed to get something out of his body."

*(ACT UP Club Culture Collection, NYC)*

Ron Hardy was at the center. His sets didn’t follow the beat. They followed the feeling. He looped tracks until people broke open. He reversed them. Sometimes it was chaos. But it was the kind of chaos that made sense in your bones. This wasn’t a reaction to

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