LGBT culture in Chicago

Chicago has long had a gay neighborhood. Beginning in the 1920s there was active homosexual nightlife in Towertown, adjacent to the Water Tower. Increasing rents forced gay-friendly establishments steadily northwards, moving through Old Town and Lincoln Park along Clark Street and on to Boys Town.

Boys Town presently serves as the best-known Chicago gayborhood and as a center of its LGBT culture. In recent years, the area has been criticized for focusing on "affluent white gay men," rather than the broader LGBT community. Gentrification efforts — alongside attempts to rebrand Boys Town as "Northalsted" to remove its LGBT identity — have pushed many LGBT people to reside ever further north into Uptown, Edgewater and Rogers Park.