Chicago’s North Halsted Street, home to one of the city’s most visible and prosperous gay communities, will receive city funds for renovations and improvements that have a gay-pride theme. Mark Johnson, spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, “Such a institutional recognition of a largely homosexual community is a national first.” The renovations, scheduled to begin in March of 1998, will include rainbow-colored lights, hung in arches on a half-mile stretch of Halsted Street. In addition to the new lighting, sidewalks will be repaired and widened, and trees will be planted. “This particular strip has contributed million of dollars to the economic base of the city, so the city is reinvesting in the community,” said Mary Morten, liaison to the gay and lesbian community for Mayor Richard Daley.
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