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(Courtesy Sidetrack Bar)Ī third expansion of Sidetrack in the early '90s Jose "Pepe" Peña (left) and Art Johnston (right) co-founded Sidetrack at 3349 North Halsted Street in 1982. The measure did not pass until 1988, but the fight over it shows how a gay neighborhood could be used to mobilize voters and organize demonstrations. Gay bars in Boystown banded together to hire a fleet of buses to take patrons down to a rally at Daley Plaza to show the strength and size of the community. In 1987, the Chicago City Council was set to vote on the Human Rights Ordinance, which outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, public accommodations, and employment.
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(Courtesy Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries)ĭuring this period, bars also hosted voter registration drives and would offer meeting space to numerous organizations and causes.
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(Courtesy Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries)Ī Chicago Gay Alliance flyer announcing a march against police harassment of gay people. The first gay establishments on Halsted Street north of Belmont also opened in the mid-1970s they included Augie’s lesbian bar, Little Jim’s gay bar, the Women’s Center, and the Gay Horizons community center.Ī 1972 handout from the Gay People's Legal Committee.
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This organization would eventually become the Howard Brown Health clinic and offer full health care services in Boystown and beyond.
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A few years later, four medical students from the University of Chicago transformed their support group into a medical clinic to combat venereal disease within the gay and lesbian population. The Chicago Gay Alliance opened the first, albeit short-lived, gay community center just south of Division Street in 1971. The political and social work grew beyond just the march. Over the years, the parade moved north to the Clark and Diversey area and Belmont Harbor, and then it eventually found a home in the Boystown area in the early ’80s, where it currently takes place. It started in Bughouse Square and went down Michigan Avenue to the Civic Center. The first Chicago pride parade in 1970 marked the anniversary of the first night of the Stonewall events. This pivotal moment was the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement nationwide. For the first time, a substantial group of gays, lesbians, and trans people fought police oppression over the course of several nights. In June of 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar run by the mob in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Gay rights were starting to have a place in the counterculture movement and in the public eye. Allen Ginsberg, the openly gay beat poet and peace activist, led crowds in chants of “om” to calm protesters. The protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago had a profound influence on some early gay activists. Questioner Jack Floyd (left) at Sidetrack gay club in Boystown alongside owner Art Johnston (second from left) and Curious City reporters Jason Nargis (second from right) and Steven Jackson (right). But as it has grown, the neighborhood has struggled to be a place where all members of the community feel included. It’s been home to many successful businesses and has been at the center of important civil rights battles. The answer is tied to persecution, perseverance, and slow societal change.Įven though it’s not the only Chicago gay enclave, the neighborhood has played a central role in the LGBTQ community’s struggle for legal equality and social acceptance. His question for Curious City: “What is the history of Boystown? What made it become and gain traction as an LGBTQ neighborhood?” “There’s this gay neighborhood in Chicago that’s not really like anything else in America, or in the world, so it made me question what kind of forces are at play - whether they be geographical, cultural, demographic - that came together and allowed this neighborhood to become officially recognized as some sort of gay entity and destination,” Jack says. Boystown stretches roughly from Belmont Avenue up to Addison Street, and it spans from Halsted Street to Broadway. Boystown is a gay neighborhood located within the larger Lakeview East area and it’s hard to miss - it’s marked with giant rainbow pillars.