Video Gaming in Chicago's 19th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Three communities with separate beginnings make up the ward. Morgan Park, laid out in the 1870s, began as a Baptist community, and when it incorporated in 1882 it banned the sale of liquor between Western and Vincennes avenues. Its fight over annexation to Chicago in 1911 dragged on in court until 1914. Beverly began as part of the village of Washington Heights, was annexed to Chicago by 1890 and stayed sparsely settled; vast sections remained prairie until the 1940s and 1950s, and saloons were barred east of Western Avenue. Mount Greenwood began in 1879, when George Waite obtained a state charter for a cemetery on a wooded ridge. By 1897 taverns and restaurants lined 111th Street to serve mourners, and the community incorporated as a village in 1907 as part of a strategy to remain wet. Residents voted to join Chicago in 1927, but sewers and lighted, paved streets did not arrive until 1936. In Mount Greenwood, 4,000 new homes went up from 1945 to 1953.

The area today

Ald. Matthew O'Shea represents the 19th Ward from a ward office at 10400 S. Western Ave. Patch reported that O'Shea won a fourth term without a runoff, representing Beverly, Mount Greenwood and Morgan Park, where many of the city's first responders live. The ward takes in parts of all three. Ridge Park covers 10 acres along Longwood Drive in Beverly, with an indoor pool and an auditorium. Mount Greenwood Park spans 52.53 acres on 111th Street, with eleven ball fields and an ice rink. Three religious high schools and St. Xavier University form a Catholic campus along Central Park Avenue, and the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences stands on the site of the city's last surviving farm.

Bars and restaurants here

Western Avenue is the commercial strip, running from 91st Street in Beverly to 119th Street in Morgan Park. DNAinfo's 2017 survey called it long synonymous with Irish pubs painted Kelly green and hung with shamrocks, alongside pizza parlors and late-night subs, and found newer arrivals adding craft beer and aiming at a regional crowd. The South Side Irish Parade marches south on Western from 103rd to 115th Street, and ABC7 reported thousands lining the avenue for the 2024 parade. The Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association, which serves 89th to 119th streets, keeps a directory of the avenue's restaurants and bars. On 111th Street in Mount Greenwood, a restaurant owner told DNAinfo in 2014 that pizza parlors were heavily concentrated nearby.