Slot Machines for Bars in Greater Grand Crossing, Chicago

History

Two railroads crossed where 75th Street meets South Chicago Avenue, and a deadly collision there in 1853 led to a rule that every train stop at the junction. Factories settled around the stopping point. Developer Paul Cornell began buying land around the crossing in 1855 and subdivided it as Cornell, then renamed it Grand Crossing when he learned a village called Cornell already existed. German factory workers followed in the 1890s and built frame cottages in Brookline. Chicago annexed the area with the rest of Hyde Park Township in 1889, and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition set off a run of building: houses, two-flats and apartment buildings. The tracks were elevated above the intersection in 1912. White City, an amusement park, opened on the north end in 1904 and closed in 1933; it was razed in 1950 for the Parkway Gardens housing development. After World War II, Black families leaving crowded Bronzeville made Grand Crossing and neighboring Chatham a popular place to settle.

The area today

The library's Chatham-Grand Crossing collection places the community between 63rd and 79th Streets, and it takes in Park Manor, Brookline, Brookdale and Essex along with Grand Crossing itself. The old crossing is a rail stop now: Metra Electric trains serve the 75th Street station at South Chicago Avenue, where CTA routes 30 and 75 connect. A Chicago Landmark district shared with Chatham, designated in 2008, covers commercial buildings from 1911 to 1930 near Cottage Grove's crossings with 75th and 79th Streets, where streetcar lines had encouraged neighborhood shopping. Grand Crossing Park, 18.77 acres on Ingleside Avenue, has a classical fieldhouse from 1914. Parkway Garden Homes, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, lines King Drive. The Chicago Public Library opened its Greater Grand Crossing branch in 2011.

Bars and restaurants here

Taverns and lounges make up most of the licensed rooms here, strung along 75th Street, down Cottage Grove south of 75th and out along 71st Street. A few have patios, and a few are licensed as public places of amusement. There is a caterer's license on South Chicago Avenue, a not-for-profit club license on Ingleside Avenue, and an incidental-activity license on 75th Street. If your door is near Cottage Grove and 75th, you are working one of the streetcar-era shopping corners the landmark district covers. Some establishments here have applied with the state for video gaming licenses.