Sunday, June 08, 2008

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.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quick, someone call Giraldo Rivera...

Librarian Girl said...

I don't know why, but I think that is so awesome.

Madelyn said...

Yup, I definitely agree, that must have been used by gangsters to store Bodies, Boo's, and Big Bucks. . . I can see it now: Gangster # 1: " Hey Sonny, Where's my Red Wine? I need it for my meal of spaghetti and meatballs." Gangster # 2: " It's where it always is, in the wall safe! How many times do I have to tell you!"

Yup, I bet they had conversations just like that all the time.

omar said...

Oh yeah, there are bodies back there. Are? Were. Were bodies. I'm sure they're all gone by now. Then they got so-and-so's cousin the contractor to come by and seal it up with cinder blocks.

There is no sexy happening where I work.

SupaCoo said...

I personally think there's millions of dollars in gold coins and unnumbered bills behind the wall. Get a spoon and start digging!

Jamie Lovely said...

I'm going to agree with Supacoo. What if there is really money back there?!

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, that safe is AWESOME! And I agree with others - someone should knock down that brick wall!

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

"...a Starbucks where people often got pickpocketed," can be read any which way, hahaha.

I want a safe like that. But for money only. I bet those gangstas hid everything you thought about!

Jon said...

And what exactly did you guys put in there for safe keeping? Some old metal shelves? I'm disappointed...