Gay life in Chicago this week, back in... 1978, 1988 and 1990

(April 25-May 1, 2019)

Gay life in Chicago this week, back in...

1978

An article in Gay Life reads:

"An interfaith service to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust will be held at 5 PM Sunday, April 30 at St. James Cathedral, 65 E. Huron. Members of Chicago's gay and lesbian community are encouraged to attend and to wear pink triangles in remembrance of all the gay victims of Nazi oppression."

+++

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is playing at the Biograph Theater.

+++

IMAGE: Gay Chicago cover – Gay Chicago August 27, 1987

Article in Gay Chicago includes:

"From the moment Donna Summer stepped onto the stage with her hit 'Once Upon a Time,' until she finished her concert with the audience asking for more, she showed her critics that she is an all-round talent, not just a disco 'flash in the pan.' Summer mixed her bestsellers like 'Spring Affair' with songs such as "A Good Man is Hard to Find' and Barry Manilow's 'Could This be Magic?' The Donna Summer version of 'The Way We Were' left many of her listeners with a new respect for her talent."

+++

IMAGE: Grapevine – Gay Chicago News February 11, 1977

Lesbian activist and author Del Martin will host an open meeting for Chicago's gay and lesbian community at 4 PM at Center Stage. Martin is one of the spokespersons for the Tri-Cities National Defense Fund.

1988

In the bars and clubs, Nite Line, 3320 N. Halsted, is soon to open a video patio; Victims of Desire plus Men at Work perform live and on two screens at the Windy City bar at 3127 N. Clark St.; Different Strokes, 4923 N. Clark St., is "a place for those without both oars in the water"; the Glory Hole, 1343 N. Wells St., closes its doors for the last time on April 29, 1988; Thelma Houston appears at Bistro Too, 5015 N. Clark St.; Girth and Mirth, the group for big men and their admirers, meets at Cheeks, 2730 N. Clark St.; Jeff Stryker, America's BIGGEST star makes an appearance at Carol's Speakeasy, 1355 N. Wells; there's a Full Moon Leather Party at Touché, 2825 N. Lincoln Ave.

+++

IMAGE: Baton – Gay Chicago August 13, 1987

An article on the front page of Windy City Times, written by Jenny Villa, begins:

"A rally for the Human Rights Ordinance last Friday at the University of Chicago also commemorated the one year anniversary of virulent attacks upon gays and lesbians at the South Side, Hyde Park Campus. About 100 people were at the rally, which was held in Hutchinson Courtyard, on a windy, chilly afternoon."

+++

A letter in Windy City Times reads:

"To the Editor:

"Toward the end of his April 14, 1988 column, 'An Epilogue for Edmund White,' Jon-Henri Damski writes, 'We share a predilection for water and sugar – our drugs of choice – and an enduring fondness for the delights of promiscuity.' How or why any gay man can extol the 'virtues' of promiscuity in 1988 is beyond me."

+++

At the Lesbian Wellness Conference at the University of Illinois Chicago Campus, keynote speaker Rev. Emilie Townes said:

"You and I are here today to turn the rocky soil that we are often given into our own gardens. Some of us here to tend the brilliance of the gardens that are already growing within us, to share with our sisters the wisdom we have gained in our journeys, to learn to grow even more. For we know that the best is yet to come in our2 living and our loving."

+++

Season of Concern benefits from a fundraiser performance of "Nickel Under My Shoe," presented at the Illinois Theatre Center, 400 Lakewood Blvd., Park Forest.

1990

An article on the front page of Windy City Times begins:

"President George Bush signed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act April 23 before a standing room only crowd in the Old Executive Office Building, marking the first time a gay/lesbian inclusive bill has ever been passed into law."

+++

An article in Windy City Times begins:

"After initially barring a five-year-old boy with AIDS from Sunday school classes, the Moody Church last week established a policy that allows the boy and other people with AIDS to attend classes.

"The boy, whose name is not being revealed, but who has been given the pseudonym 'Joey,' had been banned from Sunday school at the fundamentalist church, 1609 N. LaSalle St., until Moody developed a policy, said the Reverend Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor at the church."

"The boy had attended three Sunday school classes before some parents' opposition to his attendance led the church in early April to ban the child from Sunday school until a policy was formulated. Lutzer said, Joey is the foster child of two Moody parishioners, Terry and Walt Rucker, who live in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago.

+++

IMAGE: Rick's Retreat – Gay Chicago July 20, 1989

The Gay and Lesbian Physicians of Chicago hold its annual membership dinner on Friday, April 27, at the House of Dong Yuang restaurant, 2911 N. Halsted. Cocktails begin at 7 p.m., dinner at 8:00 p.m., and entertainment to follow.

Homework

Who saw Del Martin speak at Center Stage?

Do the Gay and Lesbian Physicians of Chicago still exist?

Who remembers Night Line?

Gay Chicago Photo Rewind

Various photographers photograph a flurry of Mr. contests for Gay Chicago August 23, 1987

Spike King photographs around town for Gay Chicago August 16, 1990

Chicago Gay News February 11, 1977

Sukie de la Croix takes photographs for Nightlines February 14, 2001

Thanks go to publishers Michael Bergeron for Chicago Gay Crusader, Ralph and Craig Gernhardt for Gay Chicago, Grant Ford and Chuck Renslow for Gay Life, Malone Sizelove for Babble/Gab, David Costanza and others for Chicago Free Press, Jeff McCourt for Windy City Times, Stacy Bridges and Mark Nagel for GRAB, and Tracy Baim for all the publications at the Windy City Media Group, which aided the above research. St Sukie de la Croix is an internationally published reporter, playwright, photographer and historian. He is also the author of Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall published by the University of Wisconsin Press.