Video Gaming Terminals in 60619 (Greater Grand Crossing, Chicago)

History

Grand Crossing began with a railroad accident in 1853 at what is now 75th Street and South Chicago Avenue, where the Illinois Central had laid tracks across the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. Developer Paul Cornell began buying land around the crossing in 1855 and named his subdivision Grand Crossing; the area was annexed to Chicago in 1889, and the crossing was elevated in 1912. In Chatham, the first buildings were corncribs the Illinois Central assembled along its tracks in 1860. The 1914 subdivision of Chatham Fields brought strict zoning and property standards, and bungalows filled the 1920s. The Chatham Park housing complex of 1941 helped turn Cottage Grove Avenue into a shopping district. African American residents were under 1 percent of Chatham in 1950 and 63.7 percent in 1960, and from the mid-1950s the neighborhood became a stronghold of Chicago's African American middle class. Burnside, hemmed in by railroads, was subdivided in the 1890s after the Illinois Central built repair shops just south of 95th Street, and Avalon Park, drained in 1900, took its name in 1910.

The area today

The City's ZIP boundary runs roughly from 71st Street south to 95th Street and from the Dan Ryan Expressway east to Stony Island Avenue. Chatham and Greater Grand Crossing, whose neighborhoods include Grand Crossing, Park Manor and Brookline, make up most of it, with Avalon Park, Burnside and small pieces of South Shore, Calumet Heights and Roseland around the edges. Burnside, the city's smallest community area, is still bounded entirely by railroads. Grand Crossing Park on Ingleside Avenue was planned by the South Park Commission with the Olmsted Brothers; its fieldhouse dates to 1914. Metra Electric stops at 75th Street and South Chicago Avenue. The CTA Red Line's 79th Street and 87th Street stations sit just across the ZIP's western edge.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on 87th Street, your neighbors include Red Pepper's Lounge and Licorice Lounge, two Chatham lounges a couple of blocks apart. Block Club Chicago describes South Side lounges as neighborhood gathering places where the bartender knows the regulars and their drinks. Duke's Cocktail Lounge, a family-owned Chatham lounge with decades behind it, is on 79th Street. On 75th Street in Greater Grand Crossing, the strip many residents call the Black-nificient Mile, long-established family storefronts and restaurants stand beside newer rooms such as Park Manor 75, a wine and charcuterie bar that opened in 2025.