Video Gaming in Chicago's 17th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Most of today's 17th Ward began as low, swampy land in the Town of Lake, which Chicago annexed in 1889. In Auburn Gresham, German and Dutch truck farmers came first, and Irish railroad workers followed when the rail lines were laid. Between 1913 and 1918 the city extended streetcar lines down Halsted, Racine and Ashland, and the 79th Street line ran from Western Avenue to the lake. Developers sold the area to families leaving older, more crowded neighborhoods, and stockyard workers rode the Halsted car to their jobs. Auburn Gresham's population nearly tripled between 1920 and 1930, to 57,381, with housing that was mostly bungalows, two- and three-flats and apartment buildings. By 1970 it was 69 percent Black.

To the north, West Englewood grew up around railroad junctions, and a transit bus barn at 74th and Ashland became a leading employer. The 1970s brought decline there, and the closing of that barn and the loss of stockyard and railroad jobs hit the community hard. Chicago Lawn, to the west, stayed mostly farmland until the 1920s, when developers lured managers and skilled stockyard workers to a bungalow belt.

The area today

Ald. David Moore represents the 17th Ward from a ward office at 1344 W. 79th St. Moore won the open seat in 2015 with 53.2 percent of the vote. The ward is anchored in Auburn Gresham, with parts of West Englewood and of Chicago Lawn, which locals call Marquette Park for the 300 acres of parkland there; the ward reaches into the park. The City made 79th Street and Ashland Avenue the priority focus of its INVEST South/West program in Auburn Gresham. Just west of Halsted on 79th, the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation turned a long-vacant former furniture store into the Healthy Lifestyle Hub, built to house medical and dental services, a pharmacy, a cafe and a bank.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on 79th Street, you are on the strip the City is planning around. Its 79th Street Corridor Plan, adopted April 17, 2025, covers 79th between Ashland and Vincennes and Halsted between 77th and 83rd, and addresses support for existing businesses, streetscape work and interim uses for vacant lots. Two mixed-use buildings along 79th were designed with commercial space, and the hub was planned with restaurants. The development corporation's chief executive has called 79th and Halsted the busiest bus line in the city.