Video Gaming in Chicago's 14th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Germans farmed the prairie that became Gage Park in the 1840s, and the area was annexed to Chicago in 1889 with only 30 wood-frame cottages and no paved streets. Between 1900 and 1910 the electric trolley reached Western and Kedzie, and by 1920 Gage Park had 13,692 residents, mostly Bohemian and Polish employees of the Union Stock Yard. Railroads on three sides drew steel, bottling and chocolate makers.

Archer Heights, to the north, took its name from Archer Road, named for canal commissioner William B. Archer, and stayed swamp and farmland until after 1900. Electric streetcars ran on Archer Avenue by 1906, drawing Poles in the largest numbers, then Italians, Lithuanians, Czechs and Russian Jews. Industry took hold in the 1930s, starting with the Crawford Industrial District, and eventually covered about two-thirds of the area. Commercial strips formed along Pulaski Road, Archer Avenue and 47th Street.

Chicago Lawn, to the south, stayed mostly farmland until the 1920s, when developers drew managers and skilled stockyard workers to its bungalows. The Orange Line was finished in 1993, and Gage Park's Hispanic share rose from 39 percent in 1990 to 79 percent in 2000.

The area today

Ald. Jeylu B. Gutierrez represents the 14th Ward from a ward office at 3124 W. 59th St. Gutierrez won the seat outright in 2023 and became the ward's first new alderperson in 54 years, WTTW reported; Ald. Ed Burke had held it before. The ward runs through, roughly, Archer Heights and Gage Park on the Southwest Side, with a slice of Chicago Lawn to the south. The Orange Line's Kedzie station sits at 4900 S. Kedzie Ave., and the line runs on to Midway Airport, whose planes can be heard over most of Archer Heights. WTTW put the Hispanic or Latino share at roughly 77 percent in Archer Heights and 92 percent in Gage Park.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on Pulaski Road or Archer Avenue, you are on the two streets WTTW described as lined with restaurants, and 47th Street is the third of Archer Heights' major commercial strips. Many Archer Heights residents work in restaurants, factories and warehouses, and Midway Airport has employed many of them too. Across Gage Park, WTTW found small businesses such as a Mexican bakery on 51st Street.