Junk Car Buyer for West Englewood

West Englewood shares a ZIP code with our own address, 60636, and the city’s ZIP boundary map puts essentially every home in the community area inside it. Getting here is simple. The truck rolls south on Western Avenue to 63rd Street, turns east and runs about a mile more toward Paulina Street. Call it 2 miles from door to door, give or take where your car sits. For the northern blocks near Garfield Boulevard, the quicker way is often the boulevard itself, which starts at Western Avenue only a block from our base and runs straight east along the top of the neighborhood.

Garfield Boulevard to the Belt Railway

The boundaries are Garfield Boulevard on the north, Racine Avenue on the east, the CSX and Norfolk Southern tracks on the west, and the Belt Railway of Chicago on the south (Wikipedia). The area was once known as South Lynne, and before that the early rail lines here gave it the name Junction Grove, which survives in the Junction Grove Playlot Park. Murray Park and Hermitage Park are two of the neighborhoods listed inside its borders.

Racine is the seam with Englewood. Across the western tracks is Chicago Lawn, and north of Garfield Boulevard is New City. Many people lump West Englewood and Englewood together. We don’t mind, but they are separate community areas, so a house number and street name save time.

Empty lots, and cars left on them

West Englewood lost more than half its population from its 1940 peak. The city bought and demolished a large number of abandoned buildings, and the same Wikipedia article says nearly all of the cleared lots have stayed vacant. For anyone with a dead car, that has two practical effects.

First, cars end up parked on empty land. Some are on the owner’s own lot, some on a relative’s, some on land nobody seems to watch. We can tow from a lot, but we need to know whose land it is and that the car is yours to sell.

Second, a car in plain sight draws attention. Streets and Sanitation’s abandoned vehicle criteria include a hazardous, dilapidated vehicle left in full view of the public, whether it sits on public or private property. Anyone can report one by calling 311. Once the city tows it, it goes to an auto pound, and if no owner redeems it, it’s sold for scrap. You get nothing in that case. Selling first means the money goes to you.

If the car belonged to someone who has passed away and it has been sitting on a family lot ever since, our guide on selling a deceased owner’s car walks through the paperwork side.

Routes in and out of the neighborhood

Most of the main streets here double as snow routes. On the city’s two-inch snow route list, the West Englewood segments include:

• Ashland Avenue and Damen Avenue, running north and south;
• Racine Avenue on the east edge;
• Garfield Boulevard, 59th Street, 63rd Street, Marquette Road and 71st Street, running east and west.

Parking on those stops once two inches of snow is on the street, at any hour. A car that won’t start parked on Ashland in January is at real risk of a city tow. Side streets don’t carry that rule.

Places on the way

The Ashland/63rd station, the end of the Green Line’s Ashland branch at 6315 South Ashland Avenue, sits in West Englewood with a park-and-ride lot. The ‘L’ tracks along 63rd Street have a long history: a branch roughly along 63rd toward Loomis Street was built in 1903, which made the area an easy commute to the stockyards and downtown. The Chicago Police Department’s 7th District headquarters is in the neighborhood too. Lindblom Math and Science Academy is at 6130 South Wolcott Avenue, and the West Englewood branch library is at 1745 West 63rd Street.

What sells, and how fast

Scrap-only cars, cars with blown engines, cars with no keys at all: we buy the whole range from West Englewood. Our scrap car page explains how we look at a car that’s only worth its metal, and the no keys guide covers towing a locked car. Same-day pickup is often possible from here because it’s such a short drive, and you’re paid in cash, Zelle or Cash App before the truck leaves.