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1. KimJ
   Member

   http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-080413spindle-story,0,34640.story

   Bids on eBay start at $50,000 for the beleaguered Berwyn "Spindle," the towering sculpture of eight cars stacked on a silver spike at Cermak Plaza. Featured in the 1992 movie "Wayne's World," the distinctive sculpture was eventually destined for removal to make way for a Walgreens.

   There are four days left to bid--but keep in mind that the cost of shipping and handling is $100,000. If for any reason you are dissatisfied, the item must be returned within 7 days--at the buyer's expense.

   Concordia Realty Management, which manages the mall where the Spindle now stands, has estimated the cost to refurbish it at $300,000. Although there were hopes as late as December to raise money to do the work, those now seem dashed with the icon's listing on the Internet auction site.

   Created by California artist Dustin Shuler, the jarring work commissioned by former mall owner David Bermant has long divided residents of the western suburb. In a 1990 bid to gauge public sentiment, Berwyn residents overwhelmingly voted against its presence.

   Poll: How much do you think the Spindle will sell for?
   See the current bids on eBay
   Berwyn's Spindle for sale Video

   "The Spindle is an international known roadside monument and Chicago area landmark and was even featured in a State of Illinois tourism campaign," the eBay listing proclaims. "The buyer will need to pay for removal and relocation.

   "The foundation, guard rails and concrete base are not able to be salvaged," the listing notes. "Engineered plans for construction are included."

   -----

   jlong@tribune.com

   Posted Sunday Apr 13, 2008 15:24 #

2. MikeT
   Member

   The march of Moskow-like mediocrity moves on. Something which helped distinguish an overall humdrum pedestrian suburb, Berwyn*, is going to be removed - so that a Walgreens can be more the same as all other Walgreens. This news is in a forum dedicated to Riverside (and its urban architectural development) since that part of Berwyn is thisclose to Riverside and is about an urban development decision. You leave Longcommon, and there is the Cermak Mall. Olmsted and Shuler's Spindle: there are a couple of fresh, unique points of light in an overall bland landscape, points of light that attract people to come to 7000 west and 2200-3900 south who otherwise would not have come and which helps to give a unique sense of place to the area.

   As I reflect on what I just wrote, I think this is one of the reasons the original cermak mall owner and the artist Shuler placed those art objects in a mall, the usual symbol of low brow American philistinism - to remind people of the dull sameness shrouding our landscape and that there is, and could be, something more. At least we still have the Pinto Pelt - or is that going, too?

   .

   * my family has been living in the same Berwyn bungalow since 1936: I am not being an elitist. My family still living there is all for the Spindle.

   Posted Monday Apr 14, 2008 10:54 #

3. Catherine
   Member

   Sad. No reason to shop there anymore.

   Posted Tuesday Apr 15, 2008 15:28 #

4. MikeT
   Member

   Today I sat in front Office depot, having a lunch, and playing that zoetrope outdoor art exhibit (try it some time), and saw *four cars* drive to the spindle, people getting out look at it. One car was a sienna minivan with big turtle top cargo carrier, looking like it was on some kind of cross country car tour. this was four cars in about a half hour.

   I wondered if people would do that when the new walgreens displaces the spindle.

   Posted Friday May 2, 2008 16:37 #

5. ChrisHajer
   Member

   Landmark 'Spindle' dismantled:
   http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6119565

   Public photos from the dismantling last night:
   http://flickr.com/search/?q=berwyn%20spindle&s=rec

   Posted Saturday May 3, 2008 10:08 #

6. spatny
   Member

   My parents had an independent pharmacy on Cermak at Gunderson - it's been an H&R Block tax office for years. People used to come in, wait to get the newspaper, have a root beer or a sundae or malt at out fountain, talk with one another, etc. Social intercourse. Friendly atmosphere, and nothing made in China. Try that at Walgreens today. You used to get welve 250mg. Aureomycin for $6.00 - qid - take two to start and one every four hours. Cured everything. Today I stopped for gas at a Speedway on Ogden in DG, and while the $40 worth was pumping in to the tank I went inside to look at what they sell. Twelve kinds of Slim Jims, ready made sandwiches, Red Bull and lots of other crap. Hip Hop blasting from the speakers and on the TV screens above the pumps. Most of the people you see dress like slobs and act worse. Try to find someone that can make change in their head. All the "Gourmets" are at Trader Joes buying frozen stuff to defrost in their "Gourmet" kitchens with "high end" appliances from Germany and granite counter tops. The broads tasting the chardonnay there and swishing it around in their mouths wouldn't know what to do with a package of yeast if it bit them. Now it's reheat and defrost.

   When I worked at Henderson Pure Oil we pumped the gas, checked under the hood, the tires and washed the windows and you got ten gallons for three dollars and thirty cents. So much for the new world. What I want to know is why we paid $7000 for that awful shiny return box in front of the library and why we have that terrible lamp out there that shines in your eyes all the way over to the Episcopal Church? Joe Gaberik at Riverside Works could have made us one that would have been fun to see and unique, and probably for a lot less. Everything that doesn't come out of a cookie cutter - ideas, designs, events - is disappearing. Well it's your world, not mine. Too bad we are losing everything that would be interesting for kids to learn about.

   Posted Saturday May 3, 2008 18:18 #

7. MikeT
   Member

   Don, keep painting those word pictures of another time and how things can still be; I know that each of us, and each place in which we build and live, are unique, but there seems to be a mind-numbing, sameness-making force in these times as we go forward to make all the same...maybe Walgreens can contract with a chinese children's penitentiary to make plastic mini spindles as I saw mini leaning towers in Pisa, Italy, and call it 'art'. :)

   and...

   Here are bits from a couple of visionary statements found in the movies...

   my dinner with andre (1981):
   ...[soon] "there will be all these robots walking around, feeling nothing..., "

   network (1978); you can replace 'the tube' (TV) with mass anything/everything

   "you do whatever the tube tells you; dress like the tube, you raise your children like a tube; you even think like a tube,..."
   

   "mad as <heck>"
   

   Posted Saturday May 3, 2008 22:52 #

8. spatny
   Member

   Robot was a word coined by Karl Capek who wrote, among other things, War With The Newts. Give that a read.

   Posted Monday May 5, 2008 22:44 #

9. stevedaily
   Member

   As an update, the ebay auction had no bidders. I myself thought it would have looked nice in Guthrie Park, but I know the Village budget is pretty tight for beautification projects like that. Here's a nice myspace page for the "car spike", "car kabob" or "car spindle", whichever you prefer.

   Posted Friday Aug 8, 2008 10:21 #

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