Chatham

Chatham is the 44th of Chicago’s 77 neighborhood districts. It is situated on the city’s southern outskirts. Chatham-Avalon, Chesterfield, East Chatham, West Chatham, Chatham Club, and the northern portion of West Chesterfield are all part of it. Traveling north of Chatham, people will enter the territory of the Greater Grand Crossing. Chatham occupies a total land area of 2.92 square miles (7.56 km2). The region has remained a constant and one of the most family-friendly communities in the area as Chicago and has progressed and developed over the last half-century.

Chatham has traditionally been home to many city employees, giving it a strong middle-class accent. Families primarily populate the region due to the high quality of the area’s schools. The Chatham neighborhood has remained relatively unchanged over the years due to many long-term residents. However, people from all walks of life are welcome in the region.

Moreover, Chatham features one of the city’s top regarded and unique restaurant selections. It’s a fantastic destination for anyone wishing to broaden their culinary horizons and try new foods at reasonable pricing. The most popular restaurants in the area are those serving chicken and fish but don’t overlook the African, vegetarian, and Jamaican cuisines just a short distance away.

Chatham is only 11.8 miles (18.9 kilometres) from the downtown Chicago Loop, and it takes around twenty minutes to get to the city’s commercial district by subway. Additionally, the neighborhood is served by the CTA Red Line stations at 79th and 87th streets. The Metra Electric District, which runs along the eastern boundary of Chatham and has stops at the 79th Street station, the 83rd Street station, and the 87th Street station.

Map

The Garden Homes Historic District is a popular sub-area in Chatham. It is bounded on the west by South Wabash Avenue, on the north by East 87th Street, east by South Indiana Avenue, and south by East 89th Street.

Another popular sub-region is the West Chatham Bungalow Historic District bounded on the east by South Perry Avenue, on the south by West 82nd Street, on the west by South Stewart Avenue, and the north by West 79th Street.

The Chatham neighborhood is part of the 60619 zip code.

Population

The 2020 US Census reports reveal that the total population of Chatham is 31,710 individuals. This population experienced a solid increase of 2.2% in the past decade calculated from 2010. Demographics show that 97.2% of this population consists of native Americans, and the remaining 2.8% account for foreign-born.

Upon visiting Chatham, one may get the impression of being in an African region. This is because the Chatham neighborhood is primarily African-American; it is the hometown of former Senator Roland Burris. Chatham has been a prominent region for Chicago’s middle-class African Americans since the late 1950s, housing numerous city employees and other authorities. One can see more blacks there than the native whites. The major cultural breakdown in Chatham includes blacks comprising 95.7 per cent of the total population. Other racial sectors include:

Whites (1.9 per cent).

Hispanics or Latinos (0.8 per cent).

Asians (0.4 per cent).

Other non-Hispanic races (1.2 per cent).

Real Estate

There are 15,053 residences in the Chatham neighborhood. Chatham households comprise 49.1 percent of single-person households and 24.7 percent of two-person households. Three-person households make up 13.7 percent of these dwellings, while four-person families make up 12.5 per cent. In the average home, there are 2.1 people.

The West Chatham Bungalows Historic District has 283 Chicago bungalows and fewer other residential structures, constructed between 1913 and 1930. 83.1 per cent of the properties in the Chatham area are occupied, with only 16.9 percent vacant. 38.9 percent of occupied residences are occupied by their owners.

Because of its long middle-class background, Chatham is largely made up of single-family homes. Traditional Chicago apartments are still available for anyone seeking to live independently in the neighborhood. There is no single designated housing area in the neighborhood. However, a popular destination for those raising families is near Grand Crossing Park.

A popular community south-side of Chatham is the Greater Chatham area. It is a bustling African American business sector that runs from 75th to 79th Streets in Greater Grand Crossing and Chatham. Avalon Park, Auburn Gresham, Chatham, and Greater Grand Crossing make up Greater Chatham. This project started in 2016 and is now home to 122,000 people.

Additionally, the Chatham district residents find recreation in the parks and picnic spots. Chatham currently has five developed parks comprising 112.75 acres of parkland. The most scenic park in the neighborhood, West Chatham Park, is a source of leisure and entertainment for the locals. The park encompasses 1,430 acres of land and features multiple activities. It has a multi-purpose clubroom, an engaging spray pool, baseball/softball pitches, a playground, and a basketball/tennis court system on the outside. Many facilities, including the clubroom and grounds, can be rented.

Seasonal sports, cheerleading, line dancing, and Bid Whist are available to park visitors. During the school year, after-school activities are available, and during the summer, children can attend the Chicago Park District’s popular six-week day camp. In addition to activities, West Chatham Park organizes entertaining special events for the families throughout the year.

Other Chatham seasonal festivals include St. Patrick’s Day, Chicago Blues Festival in early June, and the popular Chatham Family Kite Festival in the Chatham Community Park.

Because of these attractions, Chatham real estate prices have gone up 19.5% since December 2021. Chatham houses sell for an average of $196,500 – the cost of residential units is significantly less than the Chicago median of $335,000.

Schools

Chatham is a family-friendly neighborhood because of the abundance of occupational and academic opportunities. In the five years of 2015 to 2019, 26.6% of Chatham residents had a high school diploma. Associate degree holders constituted 7.5% of the population, and Bachelor’s and postgraduate degree holders accounted for 15.2% and 8.7% of the inhabitants, respectively.

Here is a list of some top-rated academic institutions in the Chatham neighborhood:

1- Simeon Career Academy

Rating: C-

Student population: 1,336

Teacher-student ratio: 18:1

2- Jane A. Neil Elementary School

Rating: C-

Student population: 282

Teacher-student ratio: 11:1

3- Martha M. Ruggles Elementary School

Rating: C-

Student population: 402

Teacher-student ratio: 18:1

4- West Chicago Elementary School

Rating: C+

Student population: 3,918

Teacher-student ratio: 13:1

5- University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Rating: A+

Student population: 2,051

Teacher-student ratio: 8:1

6- Keller Regional Gifted Center

Rating: A-

Student population: 234

Teacher-student ratio: 20:1

Crime Ratings

Chatham is a relatively safe environment, which is primarily why more families prefer to settle there. In District 004, the murder cases experienced a fall from 2 to 0 from 2021 to 2022. Robbery cases also decreased from 66 to 38. However, burglary cases increased from 25 to 39, and a similar trend was seen in theft cases, which increased from 22 to 39.

History

In the beginning, Chatham was a swampy area famous among hunters as the “Mud Lake.” Later, the western section of Chatham was colonized by farmers during the 1860s who called it the “Hogs Swamp.” Corncribs built by the Illinois Central Railroad between 75th and 95th Streets in 1860 were the earliest structures in the neighborhood. After 1876, when Paul Cornell, the founder of Hyde Park, constructed the Cornell Watch Factory at 76th and the Illinois Central rails, industrial activity began to move north. Steel mills erected along the lakeside and along the Calumet River supplied jobs for European settlers who had relocated to Chatham by 1900.

Chatham’s growing population and residential expansion due to urbanization officially began in the 1880s, with the segmentation of the community’s three distinct districts. Italian sculptors, who built chassis houses in what is now Avalon Park in the mid-1880s, were the first legal residents in the eastern area of Chatham. Hungarian and Irish railway workers lived in the Dauphin Park subdivision, situated in the eastern half of Chatham when it was merged to Chicago as part of Hyde Park County in 1889. When central Chatham was subdivided into Chatham Fields in 1914, severe zoning laws and housing standards became a defining feature of the entire neighborhood.

Chatham’s population and property values both grew dramatically throughout the 1920s. As the decade ended, the population had increased from 9,774 to 36,228. New people of predominantly Swedish, Irish, and Hungarian American backgrounds took residence in several bungalows, transforming the community from working-class to working middle class. The Chatham Park housing complex in 1941, which spurred the rise of Cottage Grove Avenue as a shopping center, ushered in a new era in Chatham near the conclusion of the Great Depression. By 1959, Chatham Park’s predominantly Jewish residents had repurposed the complex into what was marketed as Illinois’ first cooperative rental property.

The neighborhood appeared to be on the verge of another transformation by the end of the 1990s, with allegations of crime, property overlook, and economic chaos rising. More importantly, the population was aging, falling from a high of 47,287 in 1970 to 37,275 in 2000. However, community leaders and citizens focused their efforts on a series of revitalization projects to ensure that Chatham remained “the gem of the Southeast Side of Chicago,” as real estate tycoon Dempsey Travis put it.

Today, Chatham has the distinction of being the only Chicago neighborhood to evolve from a European American middle-class society to a middle-class African-American community. The area attracted middle-class African Americans precisely because of its tight property restrictions, high levels of charity groups, and excellent schools. When the racial transition was complete, African American Chatham inhabitants worked hard to keep their community’s middle-class identity.