Video Gaming Terminals in 60615 (Hyde Park, Chicago)

History

Hyde Park began in 1853, when Paul Cornell bought land between 51st and 55th Streets and deeded 60 acres to the Illinois Central Railroad in exchange for a station and daily trains. Kenwood took its name from Dr. John A. Kennicott's home near the tracks, and the name came to cover the land from 43rd to 51st Streets east of Cottage Grove, where Martin Ryerson, Gustavus Swift and Julius Rosenwald commissioned large houses. West of Cottage Grove, the South Parks Commission lined Grand Boulevard with trees in 1874, and mansions followed along it and on Calumet, Indiana and Michigan Avenues. The South Side "L" began stopping at 43rd, 47th and 51st Streets in 1896. By 1930, 94.6 percent of Grand Boulevard's residents were Black, and the area had become the hub of Bronzeville, whose central institution was the Regal Theater at 47th and Grand Boulevard. Urban renewal in Hyde Park, underway by the late 1950s, took almost a decade and moved Lake Park Avenue. In 2013, Harper Court, a former shopping center at 53rd and Lake Park, reopened as a new development.

The area today

The ZIP runs roughly from 47th Street south to 55th Street, between State Street and the lakefront. Hyde Park's main commercial district runs along 53rd Street, with Harper Court at the corner of 53rd and Lake Park Avenue. Metra Electric trains stop at 47th Street in Kenwood and at 51st/53rd Street in Hyde Park, both at Lake Park Avenue, and the CTA Green Line stops at 47th and 51st Streets. The Kenwood District, a Chicago Landmark since 1979, covers the large houses between 47th and 51st Streets from Drexel Boulevard to Blackstone Avenue. Washington Park, named in 1881, begins at 51st Street along Cottage Grove Avenue. In Bronzeville, King Drive and 47th Street is the Regal Theater corner.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on 53rd Street, you are on Hyde Park's main business strip, a neighborly strip. The crowd is University of Chicago students, neighbors, and visitors to the university and its medical center, whom the Harper Court hotel was built to welcome. Jazz is closely tied to the neighborhood through its large student and Black populations. In Bronzeville, around King Drive and 47th Street, owners serve neighbors and visitors walking the district's Chicago Black Renaissance sites, starting at the Regal Theater corner.