Video Gaming in Chicago's 44th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Farmers from Germany, Sweden and Luxembourg made celery Lake View's most important crop, while wealthy Chicagoans bought land in the eastern sector for summer retreats and new railroad lines opened more ground to housing. The area was organized as Lake View Township in 1857, incorporated as a city in 1887 and annexed to Chicago in 1889. A ballpark built at Clark and Addison in 1914 for the Chicago Whales of the short-lived Federal League became Wrigley Field in 1926, the heart of what the Encyclopedia of Chicago calls Wrigleyville. In the early 1970s East Lake View became known as New Town for its trendy shops and counterculture denizens. The unofficial designation of Boys Town within Lake View dates to 1970, when residents marched in the first Gay Pride Parade. By the early 1980s a gay and lesbian commercial and residential center had emerged along North Halsted Street, and in 1998 the city erected eleven pairs of rainbow-ringed pillars in Boys Town.

The area today

Ald. Bennett R. Lawson represents the 44th Ward from a ward office at 3223 N. Sheffield Ave. Lawson was elected in 2023 as the only candidate in the race to succeed the retiring Ald. Tom Tunney, whom Lawson had served as chief of staff. The ward takes in, roughly, the east side of Lake View: Wrigleyville around the ballpark, part of Northalsted along Halsted Street, and blocks running out toward the lakefront near Belmont Harbor. The Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce draws its district from Diversey Parkway north to Irving Park Road and from the lake west to Racine Avenue. The Red Line stops at Addison, a half block from Wrigley Field, and Belmont is where the Red, Brown and Purple lines meet.

Bars and restaurants here

In Wrigleyville, certain Purple Line Express trains also stop at Addison for weekday evening home games, and Wrigley Field has had lights since 1988. The Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce names Clark and Belmont as key streets for Wrigleyville's commercial buildings, and it holds the Belmont Sheffield Music Festival each year as a kickoff to summer. Along Halsted Street in Northalsted, area merchants launched the Market Days street fair in August 1982, and the Northalsted Business Alliance lists restaurants and bars among the district's businesses.