Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells

Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells - Paperback

$23.71
Sale price  $23.71 Regular price 
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Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells

Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells - Paperback

$23.71
Sale price  $23.71 Regular price 

Book Overview

From the Author of Man's Country: More Than a BathhouseA Very Queer Street-Before there was North Halsted, there was 1300 N. Wells

Long before the rainbow flags flew high on Chicago's North Side, a single block on Wells Street pulsed with the heat and heart of gay liberation. Carol's Speakeasy, Den One, the notorious Bijou Theater, Glory Hole Tavern, adult bookstores, backrooms, and cruising alleys-it was all there, hidden in plain sight on the east side of the 1300 block. And then it vanished.

In Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells, the lost world of 1970s and '80s queer nightlife roars back to life. Through candid interviews with patrons, bartenders, and performers, plus unearthed ads, articles, and forgotten ephemera, author Owen Keehnen uncovers the stories behind the storefronts. This is more than nightlife nostalgia-it's a raw, riveting portrait of a revolutionary era in Chicago's gay community.

From the acclaimed author of Man's Country: More Than a Bathhouse and Dugan's Bistro and the Legend of the Bearded Lady comes a thrilling excavation of LGBTQ+ history, sex, joy, danger, and resilience-just one block south of forgotten.

ISBN9781955826938
Author Owen Keehnen
PublisherRattling Good Yarns Press, LLC
GenreHistory and Education
FormatPaperback
PublishedSeptember 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages210
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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About Owen Keehnen

Tracy Baim is publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times, Nightspots, and other gay media in Chicago. She has won numerous gay community and journalism honors, including the Community Media Workshop's Studs Terkel Award in 2005 and several Peter Lisagor journalism awards. Baim received the 2013 Chicago Headline Club Lifetime Achievement Award. Baim is the editor and co-author of Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America (2012), a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Top 10 selection from the American Library Association GLBT Round Table. She is the author of Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage. She is also the co-author and editor of Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community (the companion website is ChicagoGayHistory.org); and author of Where the World Meets, a book about Gay Games VII in Chicago, Her books include a novel, The Half Life of Sgt. Jen Hunter, about lesbians in the military prior to Don't Ask, Don't Tell (it was the stage play Half Life in 2005), and the biographies Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow, and Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria. She is also creator of That's So Gay!, a 2,400-question LGBT history trivia game. Owen Keehnen is the author of the novels Young Digby Swank, The Sand Bar, Doorway Unto Darkness, and the upcoming The Dog Trainer. Along with Tracy Baim he has co-authored Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow and Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria. Keehnen also authored The LGBT Book of Days, a fun comprehensive guide to the most important dates in LGBT history. More than 100 of his interviews with various LGBT authors and activists from the 1990s have been collected in the book We're Here, We're Queer. He co-edited Nothing Personal: Chronicles of Chicago's LGBTQ Community 1977-1997, was a contributor to Gay Press, Gay Power, wrote the foreword for the Mark Abramson memoir For My Brothers, and contributed several biographical essays to the coffee-table history book Out and Proud in Chicago. Keehnen was on the founding committee and executive board of The Legacy Project and is currently a contributing biographer for the LGBT history education arts program focused on pride, acceptance, and bringing proper recognition to courageous lives and their contributions in LGBT history.

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