{"id":69730,"date":"2018-03-23T08:45:22","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T13:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=69730"},"modified":"2018-03-23T08:45:22","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T13:45:22","slug":"wrigleyville-memorabilia-shop-brings-history-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wrigleyville-memorabilia-shop-brings-history-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrigleyville memorabilia shop brings history to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Foster<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Tom Boyle can\u2019t help but poke through his shelves. He\u2019s in search of a movie poster that only he can visualize. It\u2019s somewhere among the newspaper clippings, the vinyl records, the buttons and the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me see,\u201d he says, furrowing his brows and shuffling through his inventory. <\/p>\n

After searching for a few minutes himself, he sends his colleague over to the other corner of the store, hoping he can help find it. Poking and prodding through the posters, the pair finally pull it out of the pile: \u201cA Stratton Story.\u201d Their eyes glance over the picture depicting the 1949 film about an injured baseball player. They notice the faded red-and-white hues and the way James Stewart embraces June Allyson. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is it,\u201d Boyle says with a smile. <\/p>\n

But they weren\u2019t searching through their inventory for fun. They were hoping to retrieve the poster for a customer, who has the same last name as Stewart\u2019s character. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like finding a home for abandoned children,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cWhen we can find a good home for these items, it makes us happy.\u201d <\/p>\n

Intimate customer service and an ability to provide rare items from the past are exactly how Boyle\u2019s store, a memorabilia shop called Yesterday, has managed to stay open for 42 years. <\/p>\n

[vimeo 261396329 w=474]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Boyle has no idea exactly how many items are in his shop. Counting them, he said, would be impossible. Store assistant George Kaufman estimates 500,000, while assistant Neil Cooper says about 50,000. Some items are from the ’90s, while others are more than 100 years old. Visitors can purchase sports items, historical material, old books, DVDs, records \u2014 anything, as long as it’s from the past and teaches a lesson about it. <\/p>\n

Many of the artifacts were supplied from Boyle\u2019s own collection.<\/p>\n

Boyle grew up in the Great Depression, where he was engrained to live a modest and frugal lifestyle. He used to haunt local libraries and flea markets, hoping to score unique or rare first editions from the past. <\/p>\n

After he finished absorbing the material, he would pass it along to a friend. He would rather it go to another person than in the garbage, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had so much material, I thought, why not share it with someone else?\u201d Boyle said. <\/p>\n

Eventually, Boyle had so much material that he couldn’t fit it into his two-bedroom apartment. He needed a warehouse for storage.<\/p>\n

Instead, he turned it into a business. <\/p>\n

File cabinets are stuffed to capacity; drawers are filled to the top. Buttons and newspaper clippings line the walls. Many posters hang from the ceilings. When customers purchase big-ticket items, Boyle or one of his workers will snap a picture of the customer with his newfound artifact. <\/p>\n

\"\"
Photos of customers who purchased big-ticket items line the walls and doors of the memorabilia shop Yesterday, located in Wrigleyville. (Sarah Foster\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The storefront, built in the 1890s, is older than Wrigley Field itself. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the perfect place for Yesterday,\u201d Boyle said. <\/p>\n

He named the business after The Beatles song of the same name, saying it’s one of his favorites. <\/p>\n

“I wish that when Paul McCartney came to Wrigley Field,” Boyle said, “that he would’ve come in. He wrote the song himself.” <\/p>\n

But Boyle\u2019s business, open since 1976, has not been immune to challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s feast or famine,\u201d he said, but declined to reveal revenue figures. <\/p>\n

The quaint yellow shop, located less than two blocks away from Wrigley Field, has a high customer turnout during baseball season. During the winter months, however, customers are few and far between. <\/p>\n

Counting Boyle, only five employees work at the shop. During the summer months, Boyle rents out his parking lot for Cubs game attendees, adding a revenue stream. To encourage the acquisition of more material, Boyle\u2019s business not only sells but buys and trades.<\/p>\n

“Of course, we prefer to sell,” Boyle said wryly. <\/p>\n

Boyle has no cash register, computer or credit card machine. He accepts only cash or checks with two forms of identification. <\/p>\n

Thousands of customers have visited Boyle\u2019s shop, yet many do not know of the store\u2019s existence. <\/p>\n

“It makes me happy to know we’ve satisfied so many people,” Boyle said. “But so many don’t even know we are here.” <\/p>\n

\"\"
A customer shuffles through the store’s poster collection. (Sarah Foster\/MEDILL).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boyle\u2019s shop is one of the only memorabilia stores left in Chicago, he said, as others have been driven out of business by high rent and property taxes. <\/p>\n

This is a main concern to longtime customer Howard Lee, who fears that the city is losing its memory-keepers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been part of this community for so many years,\u201d he said, referring to Yesterday. \u201cMost of the people I\u2019ve known for 40 years, Tom is the only one who\u2019s left. What we have now is microwaved memories. Now, people will say I want to buy something that\u2019s memorable, and they\u2019ll go to the sports store. People are going to remember Wrigleyville for what is now: bars, hotels and restaurants. They won\u2019t know of these quaint, beautiful places.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cooper, who met Boyle in 1975, was invited to work in the store after visiting it for many years. Stores like Yesterday are hard to find, he said, largely related to the variety of historical material it offers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no place else like it,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cIt\u2019s an eclectic mix of Cubs material, movie material, posters, comic books and history. A lot of history, a lot of old newspapers. Tom has a great love for Chicago history. It\u2019s like a museum in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
A customer peruses the eclectic selection of historical material (Sarah Foster\/MEDILL).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But to Boyle, it’s about more than just the money. It’s about teaching his customers to learn from the past and apply it to their everyday life. <\/p>\n

Boyle does not fear for the future of his business because he knows the importance of reminding people about yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we always find items that bring back memories for people,” Boyle said. “If we play a record they had when they were a child and they think back to the friends they had at that time or the memories they made, it’s really almost like a time machine.”<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Tom Boyle, owner of Wrigleyville memorabilia shop Yesterday, talks with longtime customer Howard Lee. Yesterday has been open since 1976 in a building older than Wrigley Field itself. (Sarah Foster\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Foster Medill Reports Tom Boyle can\u2019t help but poke through his shelves. He\u2019s in search of a movie poster that only he can visualize. It\u2019s somewhere among the newspaper clippings, the vinyl records, the buttons and the books. \u201cLet me see,\u201d he says, furrowing his brows and shuffling through his inventory. After searching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":438,"featured_media":69750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,31,3987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-general-interest","category-sports","category-winter-2018"],"yoast_head":"\nWrigleyville memorabilia shop brings history to life - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wrigleyville-memorabilia-shop-brings-history-to-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wrigleyville memorabilia shop brings history to life - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Sarah Foster Medill Reports Tom Boyle can\u2019t help but poke through his shelves. 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