Junk Car Removal in New City: Back of the Yards and Canaryville

New City is the official name, but almost nobody uses it. People here say Back of the Yards or Canaryville, the two neighborhoods the community area contains (Wikipedia). Either way, it’s an easy run for us. The west edge of New City is Western Avenue, the same street our base is on, so the truck goes north on Western to 47th Street and turns east. The middle of the area is about 2.7 miles from our door.

Pershing Road to Garfield Boulevard

The community area is bounded by Pershing Road on the north and Garfield Boulevard on the south. Western Avenue and the CSX tracks form the west side, and Norfolk Southern tracks form the east side. Inside those lines:

• Back of the Yards is an industrial and residential neighborhood, named for its spot near the old Union Stock Yards.
• Canaryville, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago as quoted by Wikipedia, runs from Pershing Road down to 49th Street and centers on Halsted Street. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city and borders Bridgeport.

Garfield Boulevard is the line with West Englewood to the south, and Englewood sits to the southeast. Across Western Avenue to the southwest is Gage Park, where we start. Brighton Park and McKinley Park are to the west and northwest, Bridgeport to the north.

What the stockyards left behind

The Union Stock Yards operated here from 1865 until they closed in 1971, and the International Amphitheatre stood nearby from 1934 until its demolition in 1999. Upton Sinclair set The Jungle in this neighborhood in 1906. Long after the packing houses went, Back of the Yards still has a mix of industrial buildings and homes side by side, and that matters for a junk car pickup in a couple of ways.

A vehicle here is as likely to sit on business property as in front of a house: a delivery van behind a shop, a pickup that died in a warehouse lot, a car waiting at a repair garage. We can take any of those. The person selling arranges access with whoever controls the lot, and we handle the tow. Commercial vehicles are on our trucks, vans and SUVs page, and anything the size of a box truck or semi is covered on our box trucks and semis page. For those we arrange the right tow for the job.

47th Street and the other snow routes

47th Street is our way in, and it’s also one of the busiest streets in the neighborhood. The city’s snow route data covers a long list of New City’s main streets. Once two inches of snow is on the street, parking stops on these:

Direction	New City snow routes
North and south	Western Avenue, Damen Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Racine Avenue, Halsted Street
East and west	Pershing Road, 47th Street, 51st Street, Garfield Boulevard

If your car died on any of those, it can be ticketed or relocated during a storm, according to Streets and Sanitation’s winter parking page. The side streets in between don’t carry the two-inch rule.

Who pays when the city tows a dead car

Chicago’s code is blunt about cars left on the street. Under section 9-80-110, abandoning a vehicle on any public way is unlawful, and a car counts as abandoned if it can’t be driven in its present condition or hasn’t moved for more than seven consecutive days and looks deserted. Each day it stays that way is a separate offense. The last registered owner is presumed responsible and also owes the city its towing and storage charges. In other words, a dead car on a New City side street keeps costing its owner until it’s gone.

One ZIP code for the whole area

New City is simple on paper. Overlaying the city’s ZIP code boundaries on 2020 census blocks puts every resident of the community area in 60609.

Getting a fair number for an older car

Maybe your car is an older, high-mileage vehicle that has reached the point where repairs cost more than it’s worth. What drives the offer on a car like that is mostly weight, the parts still on it and whether it’s complete. Our guide to what a junk car is worth goes through the details, and the catalytic converter guide explains why a missing converter changes the number. Tell us honestly what’s on the car and what isn’t. Our offer doesn’t expire, so you can think it over and call back when you’re ready for the truck to come to New City.