Everything Automotive: Saturday Afternoon at Warshawsky's |
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Chicago Reader
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| Compared to other Saturday afternoons
at Warshawsky's, this probably is a slow one. Two of the cashier
lines are unoccupied, and the large sales space in front of the
counter is wide open. At least half the customers are being helped
at the counter. Others are standing around the fringes, looking
bored, waiting for their numbers to be called.
I take number fifty-eight. "Forty-four!" calls one of the countermen. "Hey, what about forty-three?" argues a distant customer. "I already called forty-three." "Didn't hear you. Gotta speak up." Another customer--long-haired, tatooed, in his teens, with his pregnant wife or girlfriend--says he needs a radiator bypass valve for a '74 Impala. He's got the old one in hand, but he's not sure he's identified the correct part number from the vast Warshawsky's catalogue. He shows the catalogue to the counterman. The drawing of the valve, he fears, doesn't match the grimy part he's holding. "You got it, bossman," the counterman reassures. "You got it." It's definitely slow compared to what I remember 10 or 12 years ago. I drove a Jeep and came here on a lot of Saturdays. Invariably the place would be buzzing. One time I was standing at the pickup counter, waiting for my $10 muffler to come up from the stock room. A counterman was barking out peoples' names as their orders arrived. "Moretti!" and up stepped Moretti. "Newgard!" and there was Newgard. Then he said "Lopez!" and two guys stepped up at the same time. Then another one. The three Lopezes, apparently strangers, were elbowing each other out of the way and still another guy was hanging back sheepishly. Very possibly another Lopez. Three or four guys named Lopez at the same place isn't so odd when you realize the place was Warshawsky's. For more than 75 years, Warshawsky's, at 1916 South State, has attracted huge numbers of back alley mechanics, do-it-yourselfers, hot rodders, four-wheelers, and the occasional professional wrench. They come from all parts of the city, from the South Side to the North Shore, shopping for everything from fenders to floor mats. The other part of Warshawsky's business, meanwhile, comes from out of town. The store's 200-plus-page catalogue, jammed with fine-print product descriptions, is known nationwide, not just in Chicago. The catalogue's cover depicts Warshawksy's as a modern kind of art-deco building backed by a blue sky and surrounded by open space. Car enthusiasts arriving from other cities are sometimes disappointed; it's an aging building in a crumbling part of town. Don Ariola of New York City is waiting for his order at the pickup counter. "I've been coming here a lot," he says. "I started ordering stuff from Warshawsky's when I was in high school." Now 35, his employer has him on temporary assignment in Chicago. He drives a vintage '69 Camaro. "When you drive an old car, it's hard to get parts," he says. Warshawky's sells engine parts that even Chevy dealers don't stock. A sign out front bills Warshawsky's as the outlet of "Everything Automotive." The catalogue supports the claim: Air conditioning compressors. Stereo subwoofers. Cellular phones, real and imitation. The CB test meter. Starters. Roll bars. Horns that make animal sounds. Engine valves. Repair manuals. U-joints. Brakes. Shocks. Struts. The original Winky the Cat. (A rear deck-mounting stuffed animal, Winky's red eyes light up together to signal a stop, and blink individually for turns. "For off-road use only.") One window display shows off hood ornaments. Shiny silver bald eagles and flying horses with translucent colored wings. Not just a few; more than a hundred, lined repetitively on plain painted plywood. No signs, no words. In another window are colored plastic lenses for Mars lights on emergency vehicles. Dozens of colors and sizes. Do the State Police shop here? Another window has fake-wood cupholding trays, again without verbal explanation. In another window are chrome-plated engine parts. Still another: anti-theft steering wheel locks. Inside, past the standing tire rack, near the Will Call counter, is a four-foot-high mountain of automotive rubble. Enough cardboard crates to cover the floor of a good-sized room. Each crate contains an astounding array of automotive items. Antennas, tool trays, seat covers, steering wheels, even a tailfin for who-knows-what model of car. Windshields for motorcycles, spray paint, fake cellular phones, a squirt gun-squeegee, and a six-inch-wide roll of sheet metal for "large-hole muffler repair." Some of the stuff is still packaged; some is loose. Some is priced; some not. A small woman is rooting through the rubble for a particular kind of floormat. She finds it, and heaves it into a shopping cart 10 feet away. The cart now contains three identical mats while she searches for another. A twentyish kid browses idly. His baseball cap says "Love Means Having to Say You're Sorry Every Five Minutes" Some come to browse; others arrive with a mission. Two middle-aged men in flannel shirts move about the store with conviction to purchase a particular transmission. High rollers, they're treated like celebrities, ushered to the Will Call counter by a female employee. One man's shirtback is grimy from having worked recently under a car. The other man, maybe the brains of the operation, chats with their hostess. The store stands proudly on a corner on South State, with an overhanging sign assuring passers-by this is the ORIGINAL Warshawsky's. On Ogden at Kedzie is another auto parts mecca called Warshawsky & Warshawsky. At one time, I recall, the Yellow Pages listed Warshawsky & Sons. But the people in Warshawsky's front office won't explain the connection. "It's against company policy for anybody here to give out information about the business," a spokesman told me. "That is, anybody but Mr. Warshawsky, and he's out of town." |
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