Video Gaming Terminals in 60620 (Auburn Gresham, Chicago)

History

Auburn Gresham began as low, swampy land in the southeast section of the Town of Lake, which Chicago annexed in 1889. German and Dutch truck farmers came first, then Irish railroad workers. Between 1913 and 1918 the city extended streetcar lines on Halsted to 119th Street and on Racine and Ashland to 87th Street, and the 79th Street line ran from Western Avenue to the lake beaches. Developers marketed the area to families leaving older, more congested parts of the city, building mostly bungalows, two- and three-flats and apartment buildings; the population nearly tripled between 1920 and 1930, with many Catholics clustered near St. Leo's and St. Sabina's parishes. By 1970 the community was 69 percent Black. South of 87th Street, the Brainerd subdivision had only six houses by 1885 for lack of transit; Washington Heights was annexed in 1890, and brick bungalows built from 1920 to 1950 defined it. In Chatham, middle-class African American families arrived from the mid-1950s, drawn by strict property standards, strong community organizations and good schools.

The area today

Auburn Gresham is the core of this ZIP, with Washington Heights to the south and the west side of Chatham to the east, roughly between Western Avenue and the Dan Ryan. In 2025 the Chicago Plan Commission adopted a plan to promote more commercial activity along 79th Street between Ashland and Vincennes avenues and along Halsted from 77th to 83rd Street. The Healthy Lifestyle Hub opened in 2022 at 839 West 79th Street, in the former Rusnak Brothers furniture showroom. The Red Line stops at 79th, 87th and 95th/Dan Ryan, and Metra's Rock Island trains stop at Gresham, 820 West 87th Street.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on Ashland Avenue between 82nd and 92nd Streets, you are on the strip where many of this ZIP's taverns and lounges sit. Others are on 79th Street and on Racine and Vincennes avenues, and a few places have outdoor patios, on 79th Street and in Washington Heights. Ashland, Racine and 79th Street all carried the streetcar lines that drew developers to the neighborhood, and the rooms are still spread along those long streets rather than packed into one block.