How does Celia feel, knowing that the Chicago-LaSalle Currency Exchange has forever closed its doors?
Going into this small boxy building plunged me into a microcosm of Chicago where urgent, even desperate transactions were the norm. Everyone inside was either nearly out of money or out of time. Consequently, the volatile smell of danger was omnipresent. Tatoos were abundant, and painful looking piercings, and low-hanging jeans, their gravitational tendencies accented with dangling loops of heavy chains. It was one of the few places where even I was conscious of mingling with tribes and convicts, with people who were disgusted with the laws and tired of the city shafting them.
Regardless, the currency exchange was in a safe, highly visible location, and it was always open, making it a fine destination when an urgent yet pedestrian financial matter demanded resolution. Typically I went there to get my city sticker renewed. One could always count on getting a Sunday-morning parking spot nearby on LaSalle. Inside, waiting customers were corralled into an uncomfortably tight queue, snaking from the door to the bulletproof windows, where the lucky ones whose waiting was over bent forward to talk to the stone-faced clerks through old-fashioned metal speaking vents. Sometimes the colloquies were lengthy, as though the upshot depended on the clerk getting the customer’s full-life story. Yes, transacting business at the currency exchange bore some similarity to approaching a confessional and hoping for redemption of a worldly kind.
I do not miss the Chicago LaSalle currency exchange, but my guess is the property will be sold and the building razed to put something more starchy and impressive in its place. In the process, a bit of honest human history will be lost. The sorry, angry, frightened people who trudged through this place will converge elsewhere, still seeking the stamps that officially mitigate their lesser woes.
Harley says
A nicely written memorial to that old faithful currency exchange. I too used to find myself there when an urgent matter needed tending to: paying a parking ticket, getting a city sticker or license tag. Yes, the folks in line were a different lot. Many of them had no bank accounts and cashed their paychecks there, paying the 5-7% fee the currency exchange charged. Many years ago, when the CTA still used tokens, one could buy them there, of course for a small fee too. And many, many, many, years past, when Chicago was still a major manufacturing center for all types of needed parts for all types of larger mass-produced machines, there were LOTS of currency exchanges–almost in every neighborhood–where the workers would cash their weekly checks. . . .
I agree with you, the owners have probably sold the property where, most likely, another large, ugly, tall, and just about all-glass building will come occupy that busy corner. . . . By the by, their property was large enough to include almost 5-10 parking places. H
Celia says
Many old properties along LaSalle Street are being razed, and larger buildings going up where they stood. Many of the old buildings are forgettable, but I do still miss the old Erie-LaSalle auto body shop, and I will miss the currency exchange if it gets torn down. I’m sorry the old Burhop building over on Division no longer exists.