Walking tours through the queer history Chicago paved over — told on the corners where it happened.
Chicago's queer history is everywhere — it's just been gentrified, demolished, and forgotten.
Five neighborhoods. Five separate walks. From the 1920s apartment where the idea of "gay rights" was born, to the corner the '70s called Clark/Perversion.
Each tour is its own walk in its own neighborhood, with its own date, meeting spot and ticket. Do one, or collect all five. Mapped here north to south.
Welcome to the BDSM Capital of the United States since the 1970s.
Gay men in the 1970s created a means to fund the advancement of gay rights for decades to come that today's queers know as IML.
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Where radical lesbian activists lived in the 1920s — and today.
Uptown has been gay for a very long time, in fact queer women whose advocacy helped enshrine very basic gay rights lived here then and now!
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You won't find "Clark/Perversion" on any 1970s map of Chicago.
A LOT of gay history happened in the 1970s and 80s at an intersection where not a lot happens today, except a lot of gentrified nonsense.
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Where the idea of "gay rights" was invented in the 1920s.
Today's Wells St is nothing like what it was in the 1970s, lined with gay porn theaters. But there's gay history here going much further!
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Why this is where North Side queers went to party in the 1960s.
This walking tour explores why Bronzeville was Chicago's first gayborhood back in the 1960s and why next-to-nothing of that history remains.
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And envision a Chicago that's healthy, vibrant, and just.
Walking Chicago digs into the stories the city forgot — the buildings, corners and people that shaped the neighborhoods you walk through every day.
Five walks, each its own story. Do one, or collect all five.
$25 a person. Tickets are handled securely through Eventbrite.
Every tour starts at the listed train stop or address. Wear good shoes.
Before you walk it, watch it. 32.7K people follow along as Walking Chicago digs up the city's stories one video at a time.
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