Chatham & Pullman

Chatham and Pullman are South Side neighborhoods known for well-kept housing and Black-owned business, with Pullman also holding the country’s first planned industrial town, now a National Historical Park. Chatham’s brick bungalows and Georgians along the blocks off 79th and Cottage Grove have been a middle-class Black neighborhood since the 1950s, with a commercial strip on 75th and 79th that includes some of the city’s best-known bakeries. Pullman, to the southeast, has the 1880s rowhouses George Pullman built for his railcar workers, the restored Clock Tower and Administration Building, and a newer industrial park with a Method soap plant and a Whole Foods distribution center.

Where it is

Chatham runs from 79th south to 95th and from the Dan Ryan east to Cottage Grove; Pullman sits south and east of it, from 103rd to 115th between Cottage Grove and the Bishop Ford. The Red Line stops at 79th, 87th and 95th/Dan Ryan along Chatham’s west edge, and Metra Electric stops at 79th, 83rd, 87th, 91st, 95th and 103rd on the Cottage Grove side, plus Pullman at 111th. The 4 Cottage Grove and 79 79th buses run all day, and the Dan Ryan, the Bishop Ford and I-57 all have exits nearby. The Loop is 25 to 30 minutes by train.

What to know if you’re moving here

Chatham is bungalows and steady blocks; Pullman is rowhouses with landmark rules.

• Housing is brick bungalows and Georgians in Chatham and 1880s rowhouses in Pullman, with typical prices of roughly $100,000 to $350,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Street parking is easy, and most Chatham houses have garages on the alley.
• Public schools fall under Chicago Public Schools, with Chicago Vocational Career Academy and Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep among the high schools.
• Pullman’s rowhouses sit in a National Historic Landmark district and a city landmark district, so exterior work goes through review.
• Both Metra Electric and the Red Line serve the area, and the Red Line extension to 130th Street is under construction.
• The drawback is a car-first layout for most errands, and retail on 79th that has thinned over the past decade.

What to do if you’re visiting

Pullman’s historic district is walkable from the 111th Street Metra stop; Chatham’s bakeries are a drive or a bus ride along 75th and Cottage Grove.

• Locals will tell you Brown Sugar Bakery on 75th is the caramel cake bakery that has drawn lines and national press since 2004.
• Ask around and you hear that Dat Donut on Cottage Grove is the 24-hour donut shop known for the Big Dat, a doughnut the size of a plate.
• Anyone who lives here knows Southtown Sub on 71st is the sub shop with the neighborhood’s longest lunch line.
• Pullman National Historical Park’s visitor center in the restored Clock Tower building at 111th and Cottage Grove is free.
• The Hotel Florence and the Greenstone Church on 112th are the landmark buildings of the 1880s company town.
• The Historic Pullman House Tour each October opens private rowhouses to visitors.