What's up Chicago? I'm Erin Allen and this is Curious City.

I'm on the north side of Chicago at Kathy Osterman Beach, or should I say?

Hollywood Beach? Hollywood, like gay people beach or something? I don't know. I saw it on like Snapchat maps.

We call it the gay beach.

It's officially beach season in Chicago and the quote unquote gay beach, as is affectionately called, is packed.

Curiosity listener Rebecca Kling remembers one time when she was paddleboarding with her girlfriend

toward the beach's metal pier.

And as we came around the sort of rainbow lighthouse at the end of that metal construction,

just this wave of noise and seeing all of these people, many of them men in very, very small bathing suits.

Dance parties and volleyball and people in the water and people not in the water

and people being seen and seeing each other.

She realized in that moment,

if you're queer, Hollywood Beach is giving. And it was just such a striking moment of like, oh, this is the gay beach.

Interview me!

You're me!

But Hollywood Beach wasn't always like this. not nearly as crowded and definitely not as gay.

It wasn't even a beach at all until the city created it back in the 1950s.

At the time, it was officially named Ardmore Beach.

But colloquially, it's been called Hollywood Beach for decades by the people who know and love this place.

Clearly, this is a group staking acclaim here in a way that I love.

So here's Rebecca's question.

How did this become the go-to queer gathering spot?

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