Slot Machines for Bars in Armour Square, Chicago

History

Armour Square is a narrow strip about 21 blocks long and four or five wide, bounded by railroad tracks, expressways and the river's South Branch. A working-class district from the start, it drew Irish and German immigrants in the Civil War years, then Swedes. After the Fire of 1871, rules requiring masonry in the city's center made building too costly for many working families, who settled here, just beyond that zone. Santa Maria Incoronata, a parish of Italian immigrants, was in place by 1899.

In 1904 the South Park Commissioners bought land for a park named for the meatpacker Philip D. Armour. Charles Comiskey built his ballpark on a former city landfill at 35th and Shields; the first Major League All-Star Game was played there in 1933, and the Negro American League's Chicago American Giants called it home from 1941 through 1950. African American families moved into the southern blocks as the Black Belt grew during World War I, roughly 4,000 by 1930. The Chicago Housing Authority replaced a ball field the White Sox had built around 1900 with Wentworth Gardens. Two expressways, the Dan Ryan and the Stevenson, later cleared blocks of homes and started a long population decline. The Sox crossed 35th Street into a new park in 1991.

The area today

The Red Line's Sox-35th stop, at 142 W. 35th Street, serves Rate Field. The ballpark opened in 1991 with an arched facade and an exploding scoreboard, and it took the name Rate Field in December 2024. Armour Square Park, nearly nine acres, sits across the street with baseball diamonds, tennis courts, an outdoor pool and a fieldhouse that holds a fitness center and two gymnasiums. It also runs after-school programs and a summer day camp. Wentworth Gardens, the Housing Authority development at the south end, has its own park with a community center, a pool and a ballfield. Chinatown fills the north end of the area.

Bars and restaurants here

South of 31st Street, owners run on the Sox schedule. The ballpark's own bar sits directly across 35th Street, and the taverns around 33rd Street and Princeton Avenue answer with outdoor TVs and patios. Along 26th and 31st Streets, restaurants and neighborhood taverns fill the stretch between the ballpark and Chinatown. In the Chinatown end, along Wentworth, Archer and Cermak, the rooms are restaurants first: hot pot, skewers and ramen, with karaoke rooms upstairs and below street level. Some establishments here have applied with the state for video gaming licenses.