Video Gaming in Chicago's 18th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Ashburn grew up around a railroad. Clarkdale, a subdivision named for its developer, was platted near 83rd Street and Central Park Avenue in 1893, along the new Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway, yet by 1894 the early Dutch, Swedish and Irish settlers had built only 30 homes. Chicago's first airport, Ashburn Flying Field, opened on marshy prairie in 1916 and stayed open until 1939. In the 1950s the site became the Scottsdale subdivision.

War work and houses came next. A factory at Cicero Avenue and 77th Street made bomber engines during World War II, then Tucker automobiles, then Fords, and the Ford City Shopping Center opened in 1965 on the site of the abandoned Ford plant. The prairie gave way to new housing for more than two decades, and Ashburn's population peaked at 47,161 in 1970. The 1960s also brought racial strife over school desegregation; in the decades after, schools, churches and neighborhoods integrated. Father Francis D. Hayes came to Ashburn in 1946 to found a parish, and the Park District chose a park site there that year. The park was later named for him.

The area today

Ald. Derrick G. Curtis represents the 18th Ward from a ward office at 8359 S. Pulaski Rd. Curtis won the seat in a 2015 runoff against incumbent Ald. Lona Lane and was reelected in 2023. The ward runs mostly through Ashburn, with parts of West Lawn and Auburn Gresham. WTTW's neighborhood profile describes Ashburn as a handful of neighborhoods, including Wrightwood and Scottsdale, and names its bungalows and well-kept lawns as points of pride. Pulaski Road and Kedzie Avenue run north-south through the ward, and 79th Street crosses it. Hayes Park, a 20-acre Park District park on 85th Street, has a gymnasium, an indoor pool and a fitness center. Richard J. Daley College sits west of Pulaski, near the ward's northern edge.

Bars and restaurants here

On Pulaski Road at 84th Street, WBEZ profiled a family tavern and pizza business credited with popularizing Chicago's ultra-thin, cracker-crust style. The owner says generations keep coming back and carryout has always been strong. The Encyclopedia of Chicago notes that Ashburn has kept a very high rate of homeownership.