Selling a junk car in Hegewisch

Hegewisch is the Chicago neighborhood closest to us. Cross Brainard Avenue from Burnham and you are in it. From our Harding Avenue address the drive is about 3 miles, around 6 minutes, up Burnham Avenue to Brainard and into the neighborhood. It is the first Chicago stop on our locations list.

Where Hegewisch starts and stops

Hegewisch is one of Chicago’s 77 community areas, tucked into the city’s far southeast corner. Its northern edge is 128th Street. The Illinois-Indiana state line is the eastern edge. The southern edge is 138th Street, which is Brainard Avenue, and the western edge follows Burley Avenue, Torrence Avenue and the Bishop Ford Freeway at different points. The East Side lies north, Riverdale and South Deering to the west, and Burnham to the south.

The name comes from Adolph Hegewisch, president of the U.S. Rolling Stock Company, who laid out a company town here along a rail line in 1883. Chicago annexed it six years later. The ZIP code is 60633, the same one Burnham uses.

The three parts locals name

When someone in Hegewisch tells us where a car is, they usually name one of three areas:

• Old Hegewisch. The original town: north of 138th Street, south of 130th, east of Torrence Avenue and west of Avenue O.
• Arizona, or “the Avenues.” East of Avenue O and north of 138th, named for its sandy soil. The streets run in alphabetical avenues (Avenue F, Avenue G and so on), which makes directions easy.
• Avalon Trails. The newest part, built mostly in the 1960s, north of 130th Street between Torrence Avenue and Baltimore Avenue.

Chicago’s only trailer park, Harbor Point Estates, sits east of Avenue F. We pick up there too; tell us the lot or space so the driver goes straight to it.

Open land, lakes and landmarks

Hegewisch has more undeveloped land than any other part of Chicago. Wolf Lake and the William W. Powers State Recreation Area are here, along with Mann Park and the Powderhorn Prairie Marsh Nature Preserve. On the west side, the Ford Torrence Avenue Assembly Plant at 12600 S. Torrence Avenue marks the line with South Deering.

For a pickup, the most useful landmark is the South Shore Line’s Hegewisch station, the last Illinois stop before the state line. “Two blocks from the train station” is a good description. Bus riders know the CTA 30 and Pace routes that run through the area.

Parking and driving here

This is a driving neighborhood: about 81% of Hegewisch commuters drive, alone or in a carpool, according to the figures in the neighborhood’s Wikipedia entry. The same entry counts 375 acres of single-family housing against 34 acres of multifamily, so most junk cars here sit in a driveway, a garage or at the curb in front of a house.

Chicago rules on dead and abandoned cars

Hegewisch follows Chicago rules, not suburban ones. According to the city’s Streets and Sanitation abandoned vehicle page, a vehicle can be treated as abandoned if it:

1. sits on a public way in such disrepair that it can’t be driven,
2. hasn’t been moved or used for more than seven consecutive days and looks deserted,
3. has been on the public way without state registration or a temporary placard for two or more days, or
4. is a hazardous dilapidated vehicle in full view of the public, on public or private property.

Neighbors report these through 311. The city’s page says abandoned cars go to auto pounds 3S or 3N and are sold for scrap if the owner doesn’t redeem them. Pounds 2, 3S and 1S are all at 103rd and Doty Avenue, not far up the road. If yours has already been towed there, read what to do about a car at the Doty Avenue pound before you pay to get it out.

Winter adds two more rules. Chicago’s Winter Overnight Parking Ban covers 107 miles of arterial streets from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., December 1 to April 1, whether or not it snows, and a separate ban on about 500 miles of main streets can switch on after 2 inches of snow. Both routes are signed. If your dead car is on a signed street, move it out before December. Source: Chicago winter parking restrictions.

What a Hegewisch pickup looks like

You send the year, make, model and title status, or call. We give you an offer on the phone. If you take it, we set a time, often the same day. The driver loads the car, checks the papers, and you are paid there by cash, Zelle or Cash App. If the car was in a crash, our wrecked and totaled car page covers what to ask your insurer first.

Nearby areas

Burnham is directly south across Brainard Avenue. North of 128th Street, the East Side runs up to the Calumet River. And Calumet City, where we are based, is just past Burnham.