Brighton Park

Taking its name from the Brighton livestock market in England, Brighton Park in Chicago started as a livestock trading center in the 1850s and has evolved into what is now a mainly residential community with a mix of commercial zones and industrial works and transportation facilities. It is community area number 58 of the 77 community areas in Chicago.

A low-income but approaching middle-income neighborhood with a $43,025 median household income as of 2019, compared to the Chicago annual household middle-income range minimum of $58,247, Brighton Park is an “up-and-coming” neighborhood with plenty of sidewalks so it’s walkable to grocery stores and restaurants, with well-kept yards, well-lit streets, dog-friendly, where kids can play outside, with a very suburban and liberal feel. It only takes an average of 17 minutes when traveling by car from Brighton Park to the main streets of Chicago.

Map

Located in Cook County, on the southwest side of Chicago, Brighton Park is bordered on the north by the former Illinois and Michigan Canal and the current Chicago and Sanitary Ship Canal, on the east by Western Avenue, on the south by 49th Street, and on the west by Drake Avenue, with zip code 60632.

Population

According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s August 2021 report, as of 2020, Brighton Park’s estimated population is 45,053, distributed among 13,593 households, with an average household size of 3.3 individuals per household, and a median age of 31.3 years. Predominantly Hispanic/Latino (80.9%), it’s also made up of Asian (10.2%), white (6.8%), black (1.2%), and other ethnicities. A little more than half (57.3% ) are native while 42.7% are foreign-born, suggesting an exuberant mix of cultures in a young population.

The Encylopedia of Chicago attributes the ethnic character of the community to the churches. Although the first churches were protestant, serving the Yankees who owned and managed the early firms in the mid-1800s, the Roman Catholics established the St. Agnes Church in 1848. In 1892, French Catholics established the St. John Baptiste Church.

Later, Italians, Poles, and Lithuanians moved to Brighton Park and established their own churches, like the Five Holy Martyrs Church (Polish) in 1848, the Holy Guardian Angel parish (Italian) in 1898 and its church in 1899, the Immaculate Conception (Lithuanian) in 1914, and the St. Pancratius (Polish) and the St. John’s Polish National Parish in 1924.

Recognizing the large Polish parishes in Brighton Park, Pope (and now, St.) John Paul II visited and celebrated an outdoor Mass at the Five Holy Martyrs Church, between 44th and Richmond Streets, in his second visit to the United States in 1979.

According to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Metropolitan Family Services, Brighton Park has now the 4th largest community of Hispanics/Latinos. Around 75% of them are Mexican or Mexican-American, and the rest are Puerto Ricans, Ecuadorians, and Guatemalans, respectively. The driving force behind the Hispanic/Latino population growth is birth and not migrations, as has been traditionally the case.

Real Estate

As of 2019, Brighton Park’s median property value is $220,700, lower than the Chicago median value of $335,000, making it attractive for young, moving-up professionals wanting to settle down and raise a family. Its housing market has a Redfin score of 70 out of 100, making it very competitive, where many homes for sale receive multiple offers with waived contingencies. Two-unit housing (43.6%) and 3-or-4-unit housing types (22.1%) dominate the residential market, with single-family detached housing types comprising around a third (26.9%) of the market.

A major development project underway is the $65-million Chicago Park District Campus headquarters project being built on 17 acres of land in Brighton Park slated to be ready for business by 2023. City officials broke ground on July 15, 2021 at 4800 S. Western Ave.. They unveiled plans and future programs which include an 58,100-square-foot office space and a 20,000-square-foot field house with a gym, fitness center, and multi-purpose rooms inside, and artificial turf fields, a playground, a spray pool, and a natural area outside, with 200 parking spaces and 100 bicycle stations.

Schools

In terms of educational attainment, around a third of the Brighton Park population (34.6%) have less than a high school diploma but this can be explained by the fact that 31.5% are aged 19 and less. For the most part, 37.5% of the population have a high school diploma or its equivalent, 12.5% have had some college but no degree earned, 4.3% have earned an Associate degree, 8.6% a bachelor’s degree, and 2.6% a graduate or professional degree.

The Chicago Public Schools operates 8 public schools in Brighton Park: Burroughs School, CPS Brighton Park School, Calmeca Academy, Columbia Explorers School, Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy, Shields Elementary, and Shields Middle School.

The United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), a non-profit organization serving the Hispanic community, operates the Sandra Cisneros School, the UNO Brighton Park School, and the Officer Donald J. Marquez School.

In the wider Chicago metropolitan area, there are 159 public schools serving Brighton Park with five A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) Payton College Preparatory High School

Population: 1,220 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 16-to-1

(2) Northside College Preparatory High School

Population: 1,078 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(3) Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

Population: 2,198 students in grades 7 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(4) Jones College Prep High School

Population: 1,968 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 18 to 1

(5) Lane Tech College Prep High School

Population: 4,500 students in grades 7 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 19 to 1

There are 156 private schools serving Brighton Park, with eight A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Population: 2,051 students in grades PK and K to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(2). British International School of Chicago South Loop

Population: 604 students in grades PK, and K to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 8 to 1

(3). St. Ignatius College Prep

Population: 1,480 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 16 to 1

(4) Goldcoast Prep School

Population: 71 students in PK, and K to 8

Student-Teacher Ratio: 7 to 1

(5) The Chicago Academy for the Arts

Population: 145 students in college-preparatory academic classes and professional-level arts training

Student-Teacher Ratio: 4 to 1

(6) GEMS World Academy Chicago

Population: 440 students in PK, and K to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 5 to 1

(7) Wolcott College Prep

Population: 150 students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 3 to 1

(8). GCE Lab School

Population: 5o students in grades 9 to 12

Student-Teacher Ratio: 7 to 1

There are 55 colleges and universities serving Brighton Park, with two A+-rated schools listed below:

(1) Northwestern University

Population: 8,284 undergraduate students

Student-Teacher Ratio: 6 to 1

(2) University of Chicago

Population: 6,847 undergraduate students

Student-Teacher Ration: 5 to 1

Crime Rate

The highest incidence of reported crimes for District 9, where Brighton Park belongs, is for robbery (18 cases) and theft (15 cases) as of January 10 to 16, 2022, followed by vehicle theft (9) and burglary (8). This pattern is reflective of the Chicago Police Department’s historical comparison report pattern over the last 5 years since 2018, which shows robbery, theft, vehicle theft, and burglary as consistently topping the list but only changing in rank.

History

After the Potawatomi people were driven away between 1835 and 1838, the land which is now occupied by Brighton Park was platted and subdivided to prepare for the Illinois-Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. By the 1850s, private investors, notably John McCaffrey, bought land hoping to turn it into a commercial center. Incorporated as a municipality in 1851 and invoking the livestock markets its name is associated with, Brighton Park soon had an active livestock market. By the 1860s, though, it was overshadowed by the Union Stock Yards, which was a meatpacking district operated by railroad companies.

In 1855, Chicago Mayor “Long” John Wentworth built the Brighton Park horse racetrack, with the name alluding to the Brighton Racecourse in England. Built east of the village, the Brighton Park racetrack is now in the Chicago Park District’s McKinley Park,

Brighton Park was spared from the 3-day Great Chicago Fire of October 8 to 10, 1871, which destroyed around 3.3 square miles of the city and ravaged 17,000n structures, leaving around 300 people dead and 100,000 residents homeless. In 1889, after Lake Township — a former civil township in Cook County, Illinois — voted to allow for annexation, Brighton Park became part of the city of Chicago.

During the year of the Great Chicago Fire, Brighton Park was served by the Archer Avenue horsecar and the Alton Railroad, which built a roundhouse in the neighborhood, around which several factories were soon built. Later, when the streetcar was electrified and the interurban railway became available, the Chicago and Joliet Electric Railway serviced Brighton Park until 1934. During this time, with the provision of quick and inexpensive transport, houses and buildings sprouted in the area, built between 1905 to 1925, and which still exist until today.

As European immigrants– particularly Italians, Polish, and Lithuanians– moved to Brighton Park around the turn of the 20th century, Archer Avenue became Brighton Park’s main street especially for Polish-owned businesses.

Industrial parks also opened in Brighton Park at the turn of the century, like the Central Manufacturing District in 1905 and the Kenwood Manufacturing District on the southern border in 1915, providing more jobs to the residents in the area. By the 1930s, Brighton Park had reached residential maturity, peaking at 46,552 people, with 37% of Polish descent. Since then, de-industrialization weakened the area’s economy and population declined by one-third from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Brighton Park’s demographics and economy have been largely influenced by Chicago’s role as a transportation gateway in the region. Two major railroad landmarks still exist in Brighton Park, the Corwith Yards which is an industrial freight facility covering almost a mile and the Brighton Park Crossing which is the former site of the Brighton Railway Station.

Today, Brighton Park has evolved into a more ethnically diverse suburban community comprised of mostly young people starting to build a life for themselves, while servicing the needs of a 21st century economy characterized by increased flows of goods, ideas, finance, and people via globalization and urbanization.