Video Gaming in Chicago's 47th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Truck farming shaped the early years in Lincoln Square. Swiss immigrant Conrad Sulzer bought property in 1836, and German and English farmers followed, hauling celery, pickles and flowers to market down the old Little Fort Road, now Lincoln Avenue. Taverns opened along it for thirsty travelers. A railroad flag stop that opened in 1868 inspired the Ravenswood subdivision, and the Ravenswood Elevated, which opened in 1907, helped fill the farmland with bungalows and two-flats.

North Center grew up along the North Branch of the Chicago River, where brickyards and clay pits earned it the nickname Bricktown. Germans and Swedes, then Poles, Italians, Hungarians and others, settled near the factories. Land filled in after the clay pits closed became a golf course at Addison and Western, and in 1934 the Board of Education built Lane Technical High School there. Riverview Park brought millions to Belmont and Western until it closed after the 1967 season. In Lincoln Square, Greek merchants and St. Demetrios church, dating to 1929, set the stage for a new Greektown once the Eisenhower Expressway displaced the old one.

The area today

Ald. Matthew J. Martin represents the 47th Ward from a ward office at 4243 N. Lincoln Ave. Martin, a former civil rights lawyer with the Illinois Attorney General's office, was elected in 2019. The ward runs through North Center and Lincoln Square and takes in parts of Uptown and Lake View along its eastern edge. The Brown Line serves it at Rockwell, Western, Damen, Montrose, Irving Park, Addison and Paulina. Welles Park, 15.84 acres at Lincoln and Montrose avenues, anchors Lincoln Square. The Old Town School of Folk Music dedicated its Lincoln Avenue home in 1998, in a former library that had stood vacant for 12 years, and presents touring and local artists every week.

Bars and restaurants here

In Lincoln Square, the neighborhood chamber counts Lincoln, Lawrence, Montrose, Western and Rockwell avenues among its main corridors. In North Center, the Northcenter Chamber's special service area covers portions of Irving Park Road, Damen Avenue, Western Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, and the chamber promotes the area for diverse dining, lively bars and unique shops.