Video Gaming in Chicago's 39th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Much of the ward's land lay in Jefferson Township, which Chicago annexed in 1889. A village was platted in North Park in 1855, and German and Swedish farmers grew vegetables along the south bank of the North Branch of the Chicago River. Mayfair, known as Montrose in the nineteenth century, first used its new name for a Chicago & North Western station. North of Lawrence Avenue, only five homes had been built in what became the North Mayfair Bungalow Historic District by 1915, and more than 200 by the end of 1920. In 1929, twenty-three North Mayfair residents organized a community group whose early projects included turning Foster Avenue from a rough road into a modern street. North Park's population tripled between 1920 and 1930 as prairie and woods filled with bungalows and two-flats. In the northwest, the federal government ceded Billy Caldwell, a Potawatomi chief called Sauganash, a tract in 1828 where Sauganash now stands. A railroad stop at Forest Glen drew commuters by the 1880s, though home building began in earnest only in the 1920s.

The area today

Ald. Samantha Nugent represents the 39th Ward from a ward office at 4200 W. Lawrence Ave. Nugent was first elected in 2019 and won reelection in 2023 with 62 percent of the vote, according to Block Club Chicago. The ward takes in parts of North Park, Mayfair, Albany Park, Irving Park, Gladstone Park and Forest Glen, stretching roughly from Irving Park Road to the Devon Avenue city limit. Northeastern Illinois University, which draws students from throughout Chicago, has its campus in the ward. The North Park Village Nature Center, at 5801 N. Pulaski Road, holds wetlands, woods and savannas on the grounds of a former sanitarium, and Gompers Park lies just north of Foster Avenue. The Blue Line's Montrose station, at 4600 W. Montrose Ave., connects to Metra's Mayfair station and sits at the ward's western edge.

Bars and restaurants here

Commercial life here follows the main roads. The National Register nomination for the North Mayfair bungalow district notes that commercial buildings line Lawrence Avenue, a heavily traveled four-lane street, with the district's residential blocks just to the north. The Pulaski Elston Business Association serves a special service area, created in January 2022, that generally covers Lawrence from Kentucky Avenue to Pulaski Road, parts of Pulaski and Elston, and Montrose west to Keeler. In Forest Glen, the Encyclopedia of Chicago places commercial facilities near major intersections on Cicero, Devon and Lehigh avenues. Block Club Chicago calls Gladstone Park's stretch of Milwaukee Avenue, which touches the ward's northwest corner, a growing business corridor.