Junk car removal in West Garfield Park

West Garfield Park is the square mile west of Garfield Park, between Hamlin Boulevard and the Kenton Avenue line. It’s about three road miles from our base: west on Chicago Avenue, south on Kedzie, then west along Madison Street.

Where it begins and ends

The north edge is the rail line along Kinzie Street, where the North Western Railway built its shops in 1873. The east edge is Hamlin and Independence Boulevards, with the park and its Conservatory just across in East Garfield Park. The south edge steps along Taylor Street, 5th Avenue and Van Buren, and the west edge follows the Kenton Avenue line with Austin beyond it. Humboldt Park is north across the tracks and North Lawndale is south.

It’s a one-ZIP neighborhood: the city’s ZIP boundary files put about 99.5% of it in 60624, with a sliver of 60644 at the western edge.

The K-Town blocks

West of Pulaski Road, the north-south avenues all start with K: Keeler, Kildare, Kolin, Kostner. That’s the K-Town naming plan from 1913, and it runs across parts of West Garfield Park, Humboldt Park and North Lawndale. When you give us an address in this stretch, the cross street helps; Kildare and Kolin are easy to mix up on the phone. On Wilcox Street, a row of homes once built for police officers earned the nickname “Uniform Row.”

Reaching the car on Madison and Pulaski

Madison Street is the main road in. It replaced Lake Street as the shopping street after the ‘L’ went up over Lake in 1893, and the Madison and Pulaski crossing is still the center of the neighborhood. Pulaski Road carries north-south traffic. Two transit stations make good meeting points: the Green Line’s Pulaski stop at Lake and Pulaski, and the Blue Line’s Pulaski stop in the Eisenhower median, with its station house on the Pulaski overpass. The Mary Alice Henry Post Office on Madison is another landmark.

Two-flats and alleys

Two-flats dominate here. About 40% of homes are in two-unit buildings and another quarter in three- and four-unit buildings, per CMAP’s community data. More than half were built before 1940, and about a fifth of housing units sit vacant. A third of households don’t own a vehicle.

So a dead car here is usually in one of two places: on a side street, often a permit block like parts of Monroe Street, Adams Street or Kildare Avenue, or behind the building off the alley. Chicago has about 1,900 miles of public alleys, and nearly every residential block here has one. If the car is in a garage, read our guide on getting a dead car out of an alley garage first.

City rules that apply

• Winter Overnight Parking Ban: Madison Street, 3 to 7 a.m. from December 1 to April 1. A tow under the ban starts at $150 plus a $60 ticket and $25 a day in storage, according to the city’s announcement.
• Two-inch snow routes: Pulaski, Madison, Washington, Jackson and Lake clear after 2 inches of snow at any time.
• Street sweeping: April through November, by ward. Most of the neighborhood is in the 28th Ward, with part in the 24th.
• Abandoned cars: 7 days unmoved and apparently deserted, or two days on the street without state plates, under the city’s rules.

Next step

Most cars here are simply worn out. Read about non-running cars or how free junk car removal works, then send the form with the address and cross street.