I had planned to write about all the cool antique shops we found while up in WI on vacation last month. Instead I just have to gush about the fun we had yesterday (Sat. Oct. 1st). 👍 There was a one day sale at Bookworks on Clark St. in Chicago. It’s in the heart of Wrigleyville where the Cubs baseball stadium is. I’d never heard of this bookstore before but I loved reading the history online before going to the estate sale there. It’s an independent used bookstore that’s been around for 32 years. This area of Chicago used to be non-descript with Japanese markets and restaurants. In the last decade, it has changed drastically. It is now overrun with hipsters. All the buildings have been renovated and upscale bars and restaurants have moved in. This has caused the rents to skyrocket. Greg and I did a little math in the car on the ride down there and it boggles the mind how many books they would have to sell every month just to pay rent, not counting utilities and other expenses. Before even making any profit whatsoever. The man and woman who own it are closing for good but will still be selling books online. This made me wonder if everything had been cherrypicked by them ahead of the sale. It turns out it really didn’t matter. They had 22,000 books plus cds and records (which I didn’t even look at) all for $2 each. I feel so fortunate to be able to attend a once in a lifetime sale. 🎈
The sale started at 11 am but it was raining all night and day. We got up at 8 am and left about 10:20 am. We got down there a minute before 11 am and drove around the block for parking. Supposedly they had free parking in back but not for that amount of people. So we parked around the corner about half a block away for $4. The line of people waiting outside was daunting. I would guess 60 people because it stretched to the end of the block (across from where we parked). It was a few minutes after 11 when we crossed the street and just as we did, they opened the door and the line started moving swiftly inside. I have no doubt some of these people stood outside for an hour or more in the rain to get to be towards the front. I was floored to see they let everyone in at once!! At most estate sales, they limit the number inside to usually 15 (sometimes less) at a time. Then when people leave, they let others in. Well, I felt lucky as could be to get right in just as we walked up. We didn’t get wet or have to wait! 🍀
As you can imagine, letting that many people in at once caused it to be wall to wall people. Your body was touching others’ bodies at all times. 😳 But surprisingly, people were great. Everyone was really polite and patient with each other. I said it was because everyone was in a good mood because they were getting new books. ❤️ Normally, I never ask the people running a sale where something is because someone else will hear and run there ahead of me. For some reason, this time I made an exception. I asked where the oldest books were and she pointed out 2 areas. One was right behind them at the counter and the other was a far corner which was already filled with people. Greg & I decided to go for behind the counter first. We didn’t just grab indiscriminately, we looked things over and put them in bags we’d brought along and then placed them on one of their side counters to be held. Then we made our way to the far corner. That was really hard to reach things and see around people. It took a long time to even get to the books because of the masses. Finally we left that area and wanted to take a browse through the rest of the store. That wasn’t easy. Just to make our way through with throngs of people everywhere was a task. We ended up not finding anything else in the rest of the store. We could’ve gotten a bunch of coffee table books or biographies but I didn’t want things that take up that much space. I forgot entirely to look for cookbooks and never saw any while going through the place. It was just before 11:50 am when we decided to check out. Greg went up to the front to guard our selections and I went to the back of the line. It snaked back and forth through half of the store. It took 45 minutes to get through the line! Most people had between 6-10 books with some several others getting about 30 or so. One couple had over 150 books and they took them ahead of most even though they didn’t wait. They offered Greg the chance to check out ahead of others and he said no! I was in the back of the line and I heard this and texted him, say yes! That’s what makes him so much of a better person than I am. We were able to carry all the books to the car in one trip! Then we took a walk down the block towards the stadium and looked around at the neighborhood.
That was the only sale we had planned that day. There was a small one in our town that didn’t look too good from the pictures but we stopped at it on the way home. We found an old suitcase which we’re going to store the books in until I read them (before selling them). We also got 2 wire baskets to attach to the deck for plants and a ceiling light for the LR. Our LR is so dark and back in May we found an old swag lamp at a store going out of business. It needed some rewiring so we got it for $20. When we saw the one at the sale yesterday, I thought it would go with that one. It’s a diffent shape but has similar colored glass. This one worked and they said “Make an offer” so I said $20 and they went for it! When we get home from our next vacation we’ll be hanging it in the LR. The picture is one they took for the sale. The double pic is the one we got in May. It was an unforgettable day. I’m still on a high from getting all those books! 😍
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