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The neighborhood named for a railroad yard: Midway’s south shoulder, where the Belt Railway’s vast clearing yard gave the place its name and its paychecks, and where brick bungalows and post-war ranches line some of the calmest grids on the Southwest Side.
Clearing runs along the south side of Midway between Cicero and Harlem, and its name is literal: the Belt Railway of Chicago built one of the world’s great freight clearing yards here in the early 1900s, a place where trains from every railroad entering the city are sorted, and the yard still works around the clock along the neighborhood’s southern edge. The industrial district that grew beside it brought the jobs, and the bungalows followed.
The airport is the other constant neighbor. Living here means planes on approach, cheap flights fifteen minutes from your door, and the Orange Line’s terminal at Midway putting the Loop about twenty-five minutes away.
Tucked between 63rd and 65th near Lorel is Chrysler Village, a pocket of curving streets and small brick houses built during World War II for workers at the Chrysler plant that made B-29 engines where Ford City now stands. Its looping street plan, rare on the Southwest Side grid, and its tidy wartime cottages earned the pocket a spot on the National Register, and it remains one of those pieces of Chicago history you can walk in ten minutes.
The 63rd Street strip carries the errands, with the bigger boxes out on Cicero by Ford City, and Harlem’s suburban retail five minutes west. Hale Park’s fieldhouse, pool and leagues anchor the middle of the neighborhood, Wentworth Park serves the west end, and Summit’s Metra stop and the Stevenson give drivers and riders their outs. Midway’s employment, from the airlines to the trades, keeps much of Clearing’s workforce inside a two-mile commute.
Brick bungalows from the twenties near the yard, then ring after ring of post-war brick ranches, Cape Cods and raised ranches moving west, most held long and maintained hard. Prices sit in the city’s attainable middle, and the blocks west of Central toward Harlem read almost suburban. Aircraft noise varies street by street with the runway layout, so walk any house at different hours before you commit; our house systems guide covers what to check inside, and the joint Garfield Ridge guide covers Midway’s west side.
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