Mike Oelrich stands behind the counter of the newly reopened Chicago-Main Newsstand and proudly announces that he has invented a slogan to advertise the store.
“It’s like a candy store … for your mind,” Oelrich says with a smile. “Everybody who comes in here looks like a kid in a candy store.”
Since last Thursday, Oelrich and the other employees of the newsstand have watched thousands of Evanston residents and commuters pass through the doors for a peek at the titles, an eye-opening experience that Oelrich said also opened enough wallets to keep him happy.
The store opened on an initiative from City Newsstand, local businesses and the City of Evanston. Ald. Melissa Wynne (3rd) and Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) helped Eric Singer, owner of the nearby Lucky Platter restaurant, 514 Main St., to find an operator for the store, which the city had planned to demolish to expand a neighboring park.
Family of the stand’s previous owners met at the corner of Main Street and Chicago Avenue on Tuesday with city officials and new owner Joe Angelastri for a ceremony to officially open the newsstand, which closed in 1993 following a rent dispute.
The newsstand’s history dates back to the 1930s, when it was the kind of place where police officers hung out and the newspapers were kept piled to the sky. Passers-by would stop to check in on the world in the days before radio and television put the news in their living room.
Today, the business is magazines. True, the newsstand still sells all the local dailies as well as Sunday editions from several major American cities.
“We wouldn’t be a newsstand without them. We’d be a magazine shop,” Oerlich says.
But Oelrich, who also works at City Newsstand’s Chicago location, says the dailies simply don’t bring in the dollars anymore. Now, most people who read the newspaper have subscriptions. At its peak, he said, the newsstand sold thousands of copies of the Sunday edition of The New York Times.
The papers at the new Chicago-Main Newsstand are no longer stacked to the ceiling, but sit squat in the store’s vestibule or lie on racks next to magazines. But sales aren’t all that have changed with the new store.
Evanston resident Richard Knisper remembers when the store opened to Chicago Avenue and papers were sold at the sidewalk. Ceilings were lower. There were fewer windows. Things have changed, but Knisper says he is happy to have the store back.
Oelrich says that the newsstand fits well in Evanston because it serves an educated population that enjoys reading.
“Evanstonians are among the most literate people I’ve ever met,” Oelrich says. “Titles are flying out of our political and literary sections and the request for foreign language magazines are huge and gratifying.”
And no matter the Evanstonian’s interest, the Chicago-Main Newsstand likely carries a magazine to meet it. Among the more than 3,000 titles offered are seven magazines with the word “kitchen” in the title and nearly twice as many named for “garden.” Sections are devoted to magazines for exercise, woodworking and even tattooing. Oelrich says there are more than 1,000 other magazines on the way.
“We’re doing good business,” he says.
