Video Gaming Terminals in 60653 (Grand Boulevard, Chicago)

History

In 1910 the Kenwood branch of the "L" was extended to 42nd Place at the lake, drawing Loop office workers to northern Kenwood, where rooming houses and kitchenette apartments multiplied. The Wabash Avenue YMCA, built from 1911 to 1913 at 3763 S. Wabash, gave newcomers from the South housing and job training, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History was founded there in 1915. Between 1916 and 1920, in the first wave of the Great Migration, many African Americans settled in Oakland, and by 1950 it was 77 percent African American. Ida B. Wells, the journalist and civil rights activist, lived from 1919 in an 1889 house at 3624 S. King Drive. In 1940 a grain merchant's house, built in the early 1890s, at 3831 S. Michigan was converted for the South Side Community Art Center, part of the WPA's Federal Art Project. The Chicago Housing Authority completed the Ida B. Wells Homes in 1941, and more than 18,000 families applied for its 1,600 units. The homes came down between 2002 and 2011.

The area today

The ZIP takes in a large part of Bronzeville, running roughly from 35th Street south to 47th and from State Street east to the lakefront, across parts of Douglas, Oakland, Grand Boulevard and Kenwood. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett House on King Drive has been a Chicago Landmark since 1995, and the Light of Truth monument, a 20-foot sculpture by Richard Hunt, stands at 37th and Langley where the Wells Homes were. First Church of Deliverance, at 4315 S. Wabash, is a Chicago Landmark in the Art Moderne style; the church, founded by the Rev. Clarence Cobbs, figured in the history of Christian radio and gospel music. The Green Line stops at Indiana, 43rd and 47th, the last at the ZIP's southern edge, and 35th-Bronzeville-IIT sits just beyond its northern edge.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is on Cottage Grove, Bronzeville Winery is in the 4400 block; WBEZ's 2024 guide reported its chef saying much of the wine, food and live DJ sets reflect the neighborhood's jazz history, and that the restaurant integrates live bands. The same guide named Cleo's Southern Cuisine two blocks north, Pearl's Place on Michigan at 39th, and galleries such as Faie African Art on 43rd Street and Blanc on King Drive. On Indiana Avenue, a bartender at W. Hideaway Lounge, in the 3600 block, told Block Club for a February 2026 article that at a lounge the bartender knows your drink and the other patrons know your name.