Video Gaming in Chicago's 16th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Englewood was oak forest and swampland before 1850. In 1852 several railroad lines crossed at a place that became known as Junction Grove, and the earliest settlers were German and Irish workers, first on truck farms and the railroads and later at the Union Stock Yard. Junction Grove was annexed to the Town of Lake in 1865 and to Chicago in 1889. The Englewood branch of the "L" opened its Halsted station on December 24, 1906, and in 1907 it was extended into West Englewood as far as Loomis Boulevard. By 1920 the shopping district at Halsted and 63rd was the second busiest in the city.

Farther west, Chicago Lawn stayed mostly farmland until the 1920s, when developers drew managers and skilled stockyard workers to its bungalow blocks; its population grew from 14,000 to 47,000 between 1920 and 1930. In New City, the Union Stock Yard opened on December 25, 1865, and the major packinghouses closed between 1952 and 1962. In West Englewood, the closing of the CTA bus barn and the loss of stockyard and railroad jobs hit the community hard in the 1970s.

The area today

Ald. Stephanie D. Coleman represents the 16th Ward from a ward office at 1137 W. 63rd St., Unit C. Block Club Chicago reported that Coleman won a runoff in 2019. The ward runs, roughly, through West Englewood and Englewood on the South Side, with parts of Chicago Lawn and New City. The Green Line's Ashland branch has two stops, Halsted and Ashland, both on 63rd Street, and the Halsted stop sits in the heart of the Kennedy-King College campus. West Englewood is home to Lindblom, the high school known for its neoclassical facade.

Bars and restaurants here

The corridor to know is 63rd Street between Halsted and Ashland. The City's INVEST South/West strategy, launched in October 2019, names the intersection of 63rd and Halsted and the blocks around it as the priority focus for Greater Englewood. At the Ashland end, the Green Line meets a bus terminal and a park-and-ride lot, at the West Englewood corner where, the Encyclopedia of Chicago says, the community's commercial and retail strip ran along 63rd Street and Ashland Avenue.