By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

The City of Chicago’s “Great Chicago Places and Spaces” touring programs is offering a “Gay by Design” tour May 17-18 that looks at two buildings designed specifically for the GLBT community—the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, and Sidetrack, 3349 N. Halsted.

The tour also discusses the North Halsted Street area, which was officially dedicated as a GLBT neighborhood by Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1998.

William Greaves, of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on LGBT Issues, said each building is significant because they are city “landmarks that are designated as gay spaces. What we have are two buildings that are about meeting the needs of the gay community.”

Greaves said each building mitigates between a desire for openness and a desire for privacy. Sidetrack’s glass bar, for example, built in 1999, was one of the first open GLBT bar spaces in the U.S. and signaled a greater integration of the GLBT community into the mainstream. Center on Halsted’s architecture, he added, also “reflected the new openness of (our) community and the (larger) community’s willingness to support it.”

“Mayor Daley is pleased that Center on Halsted, Sidetrack and the LGBT community are part of this festival,” Greaves added.

Architect Richard Gibbons hosts the tour portion that focuses on Sidetrack, which he designed, while Art Gensler, architect of Center on Halsted, leads that portion of the tour.

A complete list of all GCPS tours becomes available in April.

Register online for GCPS tours at www.greatchicagoplaces.us from April 29-May 9. Information is also available at (312) 744-3315.