My internet was down for the last day or so. Coupled with the fact that I have a ten page paper due on Ralph Ellison's wonderful but sometimes descriptively insipid novel The Invisible Man later in the week which I couldn't get started on today because of a bad headache, I have a lot of other priorities at the moment. But I hate not updating the blog so I will post the Sears photos I promised Dave that I would show off.
Dave of Pleasant Family Shopping has been blogging about Sears for the last couple of weeks and he gives a wonderful historical account of the company, started in our lovely Chicago. The photos of this store located at 1900 W Lawrence are fairly recent due to the snow. I was in it and amazed and awestruck at how small and cute it was. With skinny escalators and wooden stairs, I wanted to take photos of the inside badly, but I was affraid to for fear of being kicked out. Maybe next time I will have some more guts. In the meantime, here's the outside. The first ad for this store appears in 1930 so you can imagine that it has been there practically forever. Amazing that coporate didn't shut it down long ago.
6 comments:
Thanks for posting those, Didi!
It's amazing (and great) that this little beauty is still operating. I'll put it on my "must-see" list the next time I'm in town.
Ah, you're reading a classic novel - almost forgot what people used to do before they invented the internet!
LOL! Like reading Charles Dickens go on and on about the description of a door for thirty pages? Do you REALLY miss that? I do miss reading classic novels. I haven't been able to do it much in a long time. Who knows, maybe this will inspire to read more books and less internet.
Definitely go and see this next time you are in town. A great bet for outdatedness. It is amazing this Sears has survived through many decades.
I've been intrigued by that building for a while. A friend (who's a programmer at another Chicago icon, Walgreens) lives a few blocks from there and kind of turned me on to shopping at Sears, so we've visited that one. A few weeks ago I visited the upstairs for the first time and was more annoyed that anything, but that's just because I had trouble finding the restroom. I'm willing to give this one another chance! I also really want to visit the small Marshall Field's/Macy's in Lake Forest if it hasn't closed yet...
You were probably there at the same time I was. The bathroom is pretty hard to find. I got directions and I still got lost but by the time I did find it I wasn't very comforted. It reminded up of the ancient bathrooms we used to have at some Chicago public elementary schools. It even had that "old feel" smell to it.
But it's still a cute store regardless just tiny. I thought that Macy's had closed taht brank in Lake Forest. I could be wrong though. It would be interesting to check it out if its still there.
http://www.searsarchives.com/stores/history_chicago_oldest.htm
http://www.searsarchives.com/stores/history_chicago_first.htm
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sears&w=11826414%40N00
I also have some old ads with renderings on my other computer. Great blog!
Thank you so much for those great links! I would be interested in the old ads you have.
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