office supply closet

At my old office in the River North neighborhood of downtown Chicago, we were near a lot of interesting things: a Brown-line El stop, Brett's Kitchen, Batman, The Onion, lots of art galleries and a Starbucks where people often got pickpocketed.

The River North area is known for its interior design outlets, cathedrals and has the most galleries in the U.S. outside of Manhattan. Back in the day it had a lot of warehouses, too, and you can see the evidence in the exposed bricks and beams featured in a lot of the galleries and office buildings in the area. If you're real lucky, your office will come with a built-in man-size safe.

This is in a hallway of our old office between the two larger rooms of desks.

Nobody knew why there was a safe built into the wall. We wondered what the heck it could have been used for, especially because the combination lock wasn't particularly effective.

There isn't much room inside, either.

While we were still working there, we decided (based on no historical knowledge whatsoever) that gangsters used that safe to hide ungodly amounts of cash, guns or booze during Prohibition. Or bodies. It's over the top, I know, but any sort of intrigue makes sitting at a desk job seem a little more sexy.

Nowadays the "sexy" in our new office comes in the form of some muffled samba coming up through the floor. You've gotta take what you can get.