Center on Halsted opens door to gay acceptance

Mary Schmich

June 29, 2008

This weekend you're likely to see some images from Chicago's gay pride parade, and if past coverage is any indication, you'll see at least one shot of some guy in bikini briefs and a feather boa.

Nothing's wrong with that, but it would be wrong to think that tells the main story of gay life in Chicago. Here are some other images.

Image 1: The busy Whole Foods Market on Halsted Street just north of Addison. Friday. I walk past the sunflowers, the wine bottles, the rotisserie chicken, then through a wide opening into the gay community center that rents space to the market. It's called the Center on Halsted.

The ceiling rises to the second floor. A wall of windows opens to the street. People read, write and munch their Whole Foods fare at cafe tables scattered on the hardwood.

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Who's gay? Who's straight? Who knows for sure? The center was built as a haven for lesbians, gays and bisexual or transgender people but it's also here as a link to the neighborhood.

When it opened a year ago not everyone believed it would work. Gay pride weekend seemed like a good time to see.

Image 2: In the elevator, I ask a teenager in black leather pants why he comes here.

"I like the people," he says. "And the classes." He has taken classes in self-esteem, songwriting and safe sex.

3: Modesto Valle, known as Tico, sticks out his hand. He wears a blue Oxford shirt, black slacks and a spray of gray in his cropped beard. He's 43, the gay, Chicago-bred son of Puerto Rican factory workers. He used to be a fundraiser and dean of students at Holy Trinity High School in Wicker Park. Now he runs the center.

"Fifteen hundred people come here a day," he says, walking through the art gallery, "for a variety of reasons."

Elderly people come for companionship, iced tea, the book club. Most mornings, a dozen homeless kids come for breakfast.

All kinds of people come for meditation, poetry slams, the co-gendered drum circle, the immigrant support group, the survivors of suicide group, the new parents group, the free computer lab and the free HIV tests.

4: A small, bright therapy room, one of several for counselors and patients. Four big brown armchairs.

5: "This is our youth space," Valle says. A vast room with giant windows. A little room with a piano and a keyboard. An art room. It's for anyone 13 to 23 who is L, B, G or T.

"Or Q," he says. "Questioning."

6: A wall of third-floor windows. Shiny dark wood floors. Silver letters on a lavender wall: "Irving Harris Family Foundation Reception Center." It's a popular place for commitment ceremonies.

"No more gathering behind smoked-glass doors and boarded-up windows," Valle says.

Plays are staged in the adjacent theater.

7: A huge outdoor deck. The skyline in the distance. A rooftop covered in plants.

"The Mayor Daley Roof Garden," Valle says, named for one of the center's big supporters.

8: The waxed blond floors of an NBA-size basketball court. It's named for Billie Jean King, the lesbian tennis star, and open to the neighborhood.

"Police from the precinct," Valle says, gesturing toward the Addison station, "play ball with the youth every week."

9: Marble countertops, a Miele espresso maker, KitchenAid refrigerators. A place for Whole Foods and others to hold seminars.

"Diversity through the art of cooking," Valle says.

10: "Hate?" Valle says when I ask if the center has had any problems.

He raps his knuckles on a cafe table, repeats on his forehead. "No," he says, then turns toward squeaky voices at the elevator.

A couple of dozen kids have walked from the nearby day-care center to play in the gym.