Video Gaming Terminals in 60610 (Near North Side, Chicago)

History

Astor Street first appeared in an 1880 subdivision by the Catholic Bishop of Chicago and filled in through the 1880s and 1890s. It anchored the Gold Coast, named for its wealthy residents, while some of Chicago's poorest housing stood just west, the contrast of Harvey Zorbaugh's 1929 study "The Gold Coast and the Slum." Washington Square, donated to the city in 1842, became "Bughouse Square," the soapbox of the 1910s; the Newberry Library was founded in 1887.

To the north, German immigrant farmers worked the meadows around North Avenue in the 1800s; the 1871 fire destroyed much of Old Town, and the houses were rebuilt. In 1908 the Lincoln Park Commission completed Seward Park, one of its first three neighborhood parks. The Frances Cabrini Rowhouses went up in 1942 for World War II workers; Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers, housed more than 15,000 people, and lost its last tower on March 30, 2011. The 1960s brought the counterculture to Old Town, where Old Town Ale House had opened in 1958; on Division Street, Butch McGuire's, opened in 1961 and often called one of the nation's first singles bars, became the nucleus of a lively strip.

The area today

The Astor Street District, a Chicago Landmark since 1975, keeps its 19th-century houses and early apartment buildings, now ringed by high-rises built between 1960 and 1980. Washington Square Park on North Clark Street was restored in the late 1990s, and the Newberry on West Walton Street is open to the public. At Clybourn and Larrabee, grocery stores, high-end retailers and expensive housing have taken hold on the former Cabrini-Green land, and in 2025 the CHA approved apartments, condos and townhomes for the lot where Near North High School stood until 2023. The Brown and Purple lines stop at Sedgwick and at Chicago and Franklin; the Red Line subway stops at Clark/Division and at Chicago and State. After dark the traffic goes to Wells Street between Division and North Avenue and to the Division Street bars by the Clark/Division stop.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on Wells between Division and North Avenue, you know the rhythm: a young crowd, the dive-bar regulars at Old Town Ale House, and a newer run of clubby bars and sleek modern rooms beside the restaurants that line the street. The strip has no alley or loading docks, so deliveries pull up on Wells between the bike lanes. Division Street is a different animal: bars and clubs that draw young barhoppers and college crowds onto the singles-bar strip that grew up around Butch McGuire's. Along Clybourn and Larrabee the customers are the shoppers and new residents who followed the grocery stores and high-end retail onto the former Cabrini-Green land.