Let me set the scene: Chicago was growing like crazy in the late 19th century, the population doubling approximately every ten years. Still, the first concentrated area where gay men and women lived or worked was the Levee. This might be stretching the definition of “gay neighborhood” a little bit. We can also create custom tours and original content creation about this Chicago topic and countless others. Join us for our public virtual events or book an exclusive team-building event for your private group. We research Chicago history and architecture like this while developing our live virtual events and custom corporate events. To celebrate LGBT Pride Month, we thought we’d look back at Chicago’s gay neighborhood history before Boystown. I love Chicago’s LGBT History and was pleased to share a presentation on the topic as a public speaker for a corporate client recently. Our town hosted the country’s first gay rights organization, its first Pride Parade, and much more. Indeed, Chicago has played a huge role in LGBT history in America. Chicago gay neighborhood history stretches back over a century though. It was the first such designation in American history. Daley designated it the city’s official gay neighborhood. Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood made history in 1997 when Mayor Richard M. I started thinking about how Chicago being the “City of Neighborhoods” has intersected with the city’s LGBT history.
