Pride celebrations are underway across the city, including in Northalsted where Pride Fest and the annual Pride Parade will take place later this month. But the North Side neighborhood’s name is new-ish: Many still know Northalsted as Boystown.
Chicago Social Butterflies newsletter editor Jake Wittich joined the City Cast Chicago podcast a couple of years ago to explain how the name change came from an effort to make the neighborhood more inclusive beyond cisgender white gay men.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Why was Boystown changed to Northalsted?
“I've personally heard rumblings of, ‘Why is it called Boystown? What about Girlstown?’ … But I would say the official push began around June 2020, when local activist and podcaster Devlyn Camp — along with their friend Jen Freitag — put out a petition calling on the Northalsted Business Alliance to drop the Boystown nickname from all their marketing and hopefully phase it out of the neighborhood.”
Where did the name Northalsted come from?
“The word Northalsted has been around since around 1980, which is when the Northalsted Business Alliance formed. It's also been used in the Northalsted Market Days, an annual festival that happens every summer in the neighborhood. There was already a sense of familiarity with the name. And I think people who supported Northalsted as the name also liked it because it's just a geographic location. … But then on the flip side, I heard a lot of resistance to changing the name because people feared it was erasing the LGBTQ identity of the neighborhood, and that's what made this area special.”
Why do we still need gayborhoods in Chicago?
“Decades ago, LGBTQ people really just needed spaces that they could discreetly interact with each other and form communities. So those were the bars. But now as it's more acceptable to be LGBTQ, the needs have changed a little bit. Now, the needs are more so for health care and social services.”
