Yesterday on Huffington Post, writer  Joseph Erbentraut asked  WHO NEEDS BOYSTOWN?
 It sounds like he has only lived here a couple years yet has become part of the bitter-jaded crowd.

He says, “When I first moved to Chicago, I was convinced the neighborhood would emanate a strange sort of gay magic – a combination of diversity, social justice and acceptance unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my rural Wisconsin upbringing.
Two years later, those expectations I once had for the city-designated hub of Chicago’s LGBT community are surely naive, if not delusional. While Boystown offers the largest concentration of queer-centric spaces, the area’s overflow of saccarine gayness has had an increasingly sour, if watered down, taste.”

Gays are EVERYWHERE. You are right in that comment Joseph. We are in every neighborhood, all over the city now.  25 years ago, there was a much higher concentration of gays living right in Boystown. And yes, the gays made it nice, and the straights moved in as times changed. Like so many gayborhoods around the country.   So you were silly and naive to think   the neighborhood would emanate a strange sort of gay magic – a combination of diversity, social justice and acceptance unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my rural Wisconsin upbringing. – I am sure you can admit, it’s better than rural Wisconsin!

What Boystown IS these days, is a central meeting place for the LGBT community. A collection of bars, nightclubs and restaurants for the LGBT community to come to. Sure while there are plenty of  diverse and gay welcoming bars  EVERYWHERE, from Bucktown to Uptown, I prefer to spend my money in a gay owned gay bar and be with mostly gay people, instead of hanging out with a straighter crowd  of a  gay welcoming place. We do need Boystown. We do need a central hub of gayness.

To each his own Joseph. I hope you find what you are looking for.
Read the full article  WHO NEEDS  BOYSTOWN

Michael Snell
Derrick Sorles
Best Gay Chicago