Bye-Bye to the Berwyn Spindle?
3 08 2007
My friends and I drove out to Berwyn yesterday to see the Spindle. Never heard of Berwyn? It’s a largely depressing looking suburb west of Chicago, that has about two cool things in the whole darn place, one of which is scheduled to be destroyed in about a month by the powers that be, because there just aren’t enough Walgreen’s in the world, and those that exist just aren’t big enough.
Located in Cermack Plaza, the now deceased former owner of the plaza used his own money to commission artists to create works of art for the shopping center. One of the most interesting of these pieces is the Spindle, created by Dustin Shuler.
Strip malls are the bane of the American landscape. Sure, they are functional, but they are depressing eyesores. Does it really take that much more effort and money to make a strip mall even slightly pleasurable to visit or look at? One of my favorite things I remember from art history classes was the strip mall that artist Vito Acconci was commissioned to make beautiful…which I couldn’t find an image of to throw here, but look it up!
The Cermack shopping center already has a Walgreens in it…but they are planning to tear down the Spindle to create a larger, free-standing Walgreens. It hurts the heart!
Visit the Save the Spindle website (www.savethespindle.com) and help save a tiny bit of culture and whimsy in this world!
