Market Days Celebrates Diversity of Lakeview Neighborhood

The North Halsted Merchants Association holds their Annual Market Days celebration every year usually the first Saturday and Sunday in August. And in a city punctuated by street festivals all summer long, Market Days stands out. The businesses in the North Halsted Merchants Association are a mix of gay and straight owned businesses in the area of town still known as "Boystown" notwithstanding the large numbers of straight women and men who've brought gentrification to the area.

During Market Days, businesses - and lots of visiting artists - occupy booths hawking their wares. Some booths are occupied by the businesses lining the corridor of Halsted closed for the event - bars selling drinks, restaurants selling samples of their food, even a local gay bathhouse doing its bit to promote safe sex. Then there are the artists who have purchased booths in hopes of selling everything from paintings to photographs to sculptures to candles to soaps to incense to stained glass to an "artist" who sells hollowed out books that look like books on the outside but enable you to hide - or should I say "stash" - your valuables inside. In recent years, you'll also find booths occupied by cable companies, cellular telephone companies, and other mainstream "corporate"-type businesses.

The best time of day to visit Market Days is early in the day - before it gets too crowded and before the August sun gets too hot.

One thing about this year's Market Days weekend is going to be unique. Because the Gay Games are being held in the same neighborhood a month before, the Chicago Cubs who play at Wrigley Field in the same neighborhood were unable to request to play away this Market Days because they'd already played that card in securing away games for Gay Games week in July. What this means is that the crowds in Lakeview and Wrigleyville will be larger this Market Days than ever before with both the throngs that Market Days itself brings into the neighborhood and the thousands that fill the streets of the same neighborhood pouring into and out of a Cubs game. Even in a Market Days that's become a more mixed bag of gays and straights in recent years, there are concerns about the mixing of that crowd with a predominantly straight and suburban mix of baseball fans. Recently, Chicago police were interviewed about this issue and expressed confidence that they can handle the oversight of Market Days safety amidst the typical baseball shenanigans that are so common in that neighborhood during Cubs season.