Video Gaming Terminals in 60638 (Garfield Ridge, Chicago)

History

The canal commissioner William B. Archer, the avenue's namesake, bought land beside what are now Harlem and Archer avenues in 1835. Long John Wentworth, a onetime mayor, built his own house in 1868 at the corner of today's 55th Street and Harlem Avenue. The name Clearing comes from an 1888 scheme by the railroad president A. B. Stickney for a one-mile ring of track where freight could change trains. It failed, and people called it "Stickney's Folly." By 1915 the rail hub served 18 industries, the year Chicago annexed much of Clearing; by 1928 the district counted more than 90 industries. Garfield Ridge's population rose from 2,472 to 6,050 in the 1920s, mostly Polish and other Eastern European arrivals, and Archer Avenue, with its streetcar line, became its main commercial corridor. Chicago Public Schools land was leased to the city in 1926 for an airport, which was dedicated in 1927 and renamed Midway in 1949. Single-family houses filled the western blocks in the 1940s, and Garfield Ridge went from 6,813 people in 1940 to 40,449 in 1960. Clearing peaked at 24,911 in 1970. As airline traffic shifted to O'Hare, Midway's neighbors lost businesses, jobs and residents. The Orange Line reached Midway in 1993.

The area today

The ZIP covers Garfield Ridge and Clearing, roughly from Cicero Avenue west to Harlem and from 51st Street south to 65th, with an arm running north between Laramie and Cicero toward the Stevenson Expressway. Midway Airport's airfield lies inside it. Midway station, the Orange Line's stop for the airport, is at 4612 W. 59th St., just past the ZIP's eastern edge. Garfield Ridge 2050, a neighborhood plan finished in February 2026, proposes turning Archer Avenue into the main street; its author said the Midway Chamber of Commerce told him Archer should become the business corridor. In 2022 South Side Weekly called 63rd Street Clearing's main artery, with Central Avenue another. Clearing's town hall, built in 1912 at 5649 W. 63rd St., was redeveloped into condominiums in 2004.

Bars and restaurants here

Owners on 63rd Street in Clearing have a neighbor with history in Vince's Restaurant & Pizzeria, at 6217 W. 63rd St. Block Club reported in June 2026 that the Parmigiani family opened it in 1956 in Auburn Gresham, moved it to 63rd in 1969 and to its current address in 1979. Farther west, brothers Frank and Austin Battaglia opened Stunod's Pizzeria, at 6535 W. 63rd St., in 2019. At 65th and Central, Twisted Shamrock Pub was described in January 2024 as a comfortable pub aimed at the middle of the community. On Archer, Mini Hut, at 6659 W. Archer Ave., reopened under new ownership, Southwest Regional Publishing reported in May 2026.