Slot Machines for Bars in North Center, Chicago

History

In the 1840s John H. Kinzie and William B. Ogden owned most of the land here; Ogden sold a large tract to John Turner, who rented pieces of it to German truck farmers. After the fire of 1871 Chicago wanted brick, the North Branch held clay, and the brickyards and pits along the bank earned the area the nickname "Bricktown." The Deering Harvester Works, opened at Fullerton in 1880, spread north onto North Center land. Germans and Swedes came first, then Kashubes, Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Serbs and Croatians. German Catholics founded St. Benedict in 1902 and finished its present church on Irving Park Road in 1918.

Street railways and the Ravenswood "L" pushed housing west to Western Avenue, and the clay pits closed under neighborhood complaint, then filled with garbage. The pit at Addison and Western became a golf links and, in 1934, the campus of Lane Technical High School. At Belmont and Western a German social club's picnic grove grew into Riverview, the amusement park that drew millions until it closed after the 1967 season. The business district took its name officially in 1921 from the merchants' association at Lincoln, Irving Park and Robey, the street now called Damen.

The area today

North Center lies between the river and Ravenswood Avenue, five miles north of the Loop, where the Brown Line runs between Kimball and downtown with stops at Irving Park and Addison. Lincoln Avenue's crossing with Damen and Irving Park Road is the commercial center, with the chamber of commerce on Lincoln just north of it and the Northcenter Town Square at 4100 N. Damen. A special service area created in 2006 keeps the sidewalks washed and planted along Lincoln, Damen, Western and Irving Park Road. Lane Tech's thirty-acre campus holds the corner of Addison and Western. Hamlin Park, created in 1909 with a Dwight Perkins fieldhouse and an outdoor pool, serves the blocks near Damen and Belmont; Revere Park sits on Irving Park Road by the river. Roscoe Village, which goes by the village within the city, runs along Roscoe Street, and the parish on Irving Park Road goes by St. Ben's.

Bars and restaurants here

Roscoe Street west of Damen is the patio strip: neighborhood taverns with sidewalk tables and beer gardens, a wine bar with a hidden roofed patio, and dogs under the tables. Lincoln Avenue between Addison and Montrose is the chamber's strip of storefront bars and dining rooms, and Ribfest Chicago closes it between Irving Park Road and Hutchinson for a weekend in June. Irving Park Road between the Brown Line stop and Western holds a German tavern with a beer garden. Addison west of Damen has the pub with the picnic-table patio and fireplace.