Slot Machines for Bars in Clearing, Chicago

History

Dutch and German farmers lived here by the middle of the nineteenth century, and the biggest landholder was Long John Wentworth, the onetime mayor, who built a house at what is now 55th and Harlem in 1868. The name came from a railroad plan. In 1888 A. B. Stickney, president of the Chicago Great Western, planned a one-mile circle of track where freight could be unloaded and transferred between trains, away from the congestion nearer downtown. The scheme failed and the circle became known as Stickney's Folly, but the name Clearing stuck, and the Belt Railway's Clearing Yards, 786 acres today, carry it on. By 1915 the freight hub was tied to 18 industries, and Chicago annexed much of the town that year, with more added in 1917 and 1923. The industrial district passed 90 firms by 1928. The town hall built in 1912 still stands at 5649 W. 63rd St.; St. Symphorosa parish met there from 1927 until its church was finished. The city dedicated Chicago Municipal Airport that same year, on land leased from the school board. It became Midway in 1949, for the Pacific battle, and was the world's busiest airport until 1961. Clearing grew from 6,068 people in 1940 to 24,911 in 1970.

The area today

Clearing runs from 59th Street to 65th and from Cicero Avenue to Harlem, and about half of Midway Airport lies inside those lines. Its main street is 63rd, where old Polish and English signs hang beside newer Spanish ones and you can hear planes taking off. Central Avenue is the other main artery, meeting Archer Avenue to the north and running south toward Chicago Ridge, lined with Mexican businesses. The Orange Line's Midway station, on 59th Street, connects to the airport. One reader told the Sun-Times that Clearing feels like a small town, with its town hall still standing and much of it surrounded by Midway and the Bedford Park factories. Other anchors are the Clearing branch library at 6423 W. 63rd Pl., opened in 1994 after a 63rd Street storefront outgrew its space; Hale Park, with a pool and a fieldhouse dedicated in 1998; and Chrysler Village, a National Register district of curving streets built during the war, between 63rd and 65th Streets.

Bars and restaurants here

Taverns and restaurants are spread along 63rd between Cicero and Harlem, among them a family-run Italian restaurant that has been on the street since 1969. On Central the taverns sit among the Mexican storefronts, and Cicero Avenue near the airport leans toward dining rooms. Some liquor-licensed establishments here have applied with the state for video gaming.