Video Gaming in Chicago's 9th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Roseland began in 1849, when newly arrived Dutch families built homes along the Chicago-Thornton Road on a ridge west of Lake Calumet. The settlement, first called High Prairie, took shape around a Reformed church, small truck farms and the stores on the road later named Michigan Avenue. In 1873, James H. Bowen of the Calumet and Chicago Canal and Dock Company suggested the name Roseland. Seven years later Bowen's company sold more than four thousand acres on Roseland's eastern edge to the Pullman Land Association, and George Pullman's company town rose beside the car works, its first residents settling in 1881. Pullman workers bought and rented homes from the Dutch, and Michigan Avenue's stores served the neighboring communities. West Pullman began in 1891 as an industrial and residential subdivision, home to families who worked at International Harvester and other nearby factories. Pullman became a National Historic Landmark in 1971. The Pullman Car Works built its last railroad car in 1981, and the collapse of the steel and automotive industries in the 1980s left many Roseland families without jobs.

The area today

Ald. Anthony Beale represents the 9th Ward from a ward office at 34 E. 112th Place. The alderperson joined the City Council in 1999. The ward runs through parts of Roseland, Pullman and West Pullman on the far South Side. Pullman is the anchor: Pullman National Historical Park, designated in 2015 as the first National Park Service unit in Chicago, covers a historic district that includes the Hotel Florence, the Greenstone Church and the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum. Metra Electric trains stop along Cottage Grove at 111th Street in Pullman and at Kensington/115th Street. The CTA's Red Line Extension project, 5.5 miles from 95th/Dan Ryan to 130th Street, lists new stations near 111th Street and Michigan Avenue. Roseland's commercial district runs along Michigan Avenue.

Bars and restaurants here

Restaurants are a recent arrival in Pullman. Until lately the neighborhood had only a few, and Lexington Betty Smokehouse, Potbelly and Culver's have since opened about half a mile from the National Park Service's main Pullman building. The Pullman Park Retail Center on 111th Street is expected to add three more eateries in 2027. At the Pullman Gateway complex, on Doty and Corliss avenues, about 300 CTA employees work on site and bring lunchtime traffic. In Roseland, the stretch of Michigan Avenue between 111th and 115th streets is the one locals have called The Ave, and south of 111th Street it still holds much of its historic streetscape and a collection of legacy businesses.