Gay Village

A gay village, also called a gayborhood, gay neighborhood, or LGBTQ district, is an area of a city with generally recognized boundaries that is home to or frequented by many LGBTQ people. Well-known examples include the Castro in San Francisco, Greenwich Village in New York, Northalsted (formerly Boystown) in Chicago, Philadelphia's Gayborhood, and Le Village in Montreal. These districts grew in the mid-20th century when LGBTQ people gathered for safety and belonging in places where they were often pushed to the margins, and they became centers of bars, bookstores, clinics, and activism. Today many are marked by rainbow crosswalks and historic sites, though rising rents and gentrification have reshaped or thinned some of them.