So a nice friendly neighborhood policeman offers to help a business in time of trouble and he gets suspended for it? No, Officer Bennie Janik didn't thwart robbers or chase the bad guys down the street in August of 1948 but it isn't like he was running radio sales on the black market either. He was suspended for giving a radio away. Okay, so he committed the robbery so to speak. Not really. The story goes like this "...Janik, while off duty on August 17, was informed that a window was broken at the Tasemkin furniture store, 4609 S Ashland av., and after investigating, ordered John Wroble, 44, of 4609 S. Marshfield av., to guard the window while he reported it. Upon returning, Lyons said, Janik took a radio from the window and gave it to Wroble for his trouble." This fine man in blue commits one lousy mistake and gets treated like it is a criminal offense. Couldn't he have just reimbursed the store for that vintage radio? Sheesh.
While Tasemkin went out of business long ago, this former furniture shop, like Aronson's, still stands empty and deserted with great vintage neon just waiting to be re-lit. Some time ago, while surfing through Lee Bey's blog, I read his awesomely hilarious post on this store which says "...The former Tasemkin Furniture store at 46th and Ashland. You can look at the marquee to see what once drew the crowds there: household appliances by Admiral, Zenith, Speed Queen, Crown, Roper and (scratched out on the left, there) Amana, all advertised under the crisp, colorful flash of neon. Do these names mean anything anymore? Today, I bet they would generate about as much foot traffic as would a double feature starring John Agar and Faith Domergue." In defense of the beautiful deceased actress Faith Dormergue, I did once see her opposite Robert Mitchum in a film noir titled Where Danger Lives where she was stunningly unconvincing as a femme fatale/crazy cold killer. Okay, so I admit, Lee is right, she isn't exactly someone you would flock to the theater to go see unless you cared about actresses who put out boorish performances. In the meantime, check out Lee's great photos of this place all lit up. It is much better than any B movie film noir that defies all logic.
Click on the 1960 ad to get a much larger view and a good look at furniture shops on the South Side at the time.
2 comments:
The radio probably wasn't vintage at the time, Didi! :)
I loved these old appliance stores with the manufacturers' logos in neon. There used to be quite a few of them, but now they're a rare sight. The Tasemkin sign is in decent shape for its age - well, at least it still exists. And that vintage night shot on Lee Bey's site is a knockout!
Yea, that vintage night shot came from a scene from a sydicated television show in the 1980s called Chicago Story, it was set in the 1930s. I loved how at least at the time the scene for the show had been shot, the sign was still in amazing condition.
LOL! It wasn't a vintage radio yet of course. He probably wasn't thinking when he just handed it to the other man for his trouble watching the window. At least Officer Friendly was concerned enough to have someone monitor the window so that nothing else could get stolen.
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