How Tony Fitzpatrick (Indirectly) Saved This Iconic Sign
WICKER PARK — After more than 71 years, Barry’s Drugs — one of Chicago’s longest running family-owned neighborhood pharmacies — has closed.
The Wicker Park pharmacy at 1370 N. Milwaukee Ave. opened on June 6, 1946.
“My wife thought that I would have separation anxiety but it was past the time [to close]. I didn’t have any separation anxiety. We kept it open for employees; it wasn’t about me,” pharmacist and owner Barry Golin said on Monday.
Barry’s Drugs closed on December 12. Rosemary DuPrey, who worked there for 43 years and served as its manager, relocated to the pharmacy inside Jewel-Osco up the street. General practioner Dr. Francisco Ricaurte opened a new office inside Deitch Pharmacy at 1800 W. Chicago Ave.
Golin retired.
In mid-January, the pharmacy’s 1,500-pound, 16-foot-tall neon sign advertising cut rate drugs and cosmetics was removed by workers from Best Neon.
Best Neon created the sign in 1960 and serviced it over the decades.
The sign is currently back at Best Neon and will be restored this spring, according to the owner of the sign who lives Downtown and is Golin’s neighbor.
Golin’s neighbor, who declined to be named (for now), paid to have the sign removed and now owns it.
“My neighbor loved the sign and has one of Tony Fitzpatrick’s renditions of the sign; it’s hanging in his house,” Golin said.
Last February in his New City column, “Dime Stories,” Fitzpatrick waxed poetic on the sign:
“When Milwaukee Avenue was the Polish Michigan Avenue, there were signs like this up and down that thoroughfare. Miraculously, a lot of them still survive. Big, with neon and bright reds and small sequential lightbulbs, they competed for your attention. Milwaukee Avenue was the main drag for the Polish-American experience in Chicago. It is hard to sometimes get a whiff of this community anymore.”- Tony Fitzpatrick wrote.
The drawing accompanying the column featured the neon sign at the center and words by Fitzpatrick that sound like they could have been written by Algren, describing a character in search of his next fix.
In a bit of a twist, Golin’s neighbor knew Golin owned a drug store, but he did not know the name of the store.
“I am one of Tony’s collectors, and Tony sent me the piece before it was in New City. I was sitting at Wolfy’s on Peterson with my son having a hot dog after I bought [the rendition by Fitzpatrick] and I was reading the story when I realized the sign was from Barry, my next door neighbor’s drug store. It was one of these kismet situations and the first thing I thought was, ‘We’ve got to preserve the sign,” the neighbor said.
“I’m honored and thrilled and in some way I feel like it’s meant to be preserved by me; it’s such a weird thing that this whole exchange would happen the way it did,” the neighbor added.
Golin, a second-generation pharmacist, was eight when his father Edward opened the store. Edward named his pharmacy after his son.
Reached on Monday, Fitzpatrick said he misses the Barry’s Drugs sign as well and that it’s worth noting that John McNaughton, the great film director, lived above Barry’s for 17 years and had Golin for a landlord when he made “Henry; Portrait of a Serial Killer” and “Mad Dog and Glory.”
Micheal Rooker, who stars in “Henry; Portrait of a Serial Killer” lived in the area as well.
Real estate broker Joe Padorr with Seneca Real Estate said he is looking for a new tenant. The space went up for rent in mid-December.
“I’m talking to a variety of retail users, from salons to barber shops and even a small fitness user building a presence here [in Chicago]. It’s a tougher time for retail with all the online options, but I read somewhere that millennials like to go into stores, so there could be a renaissance for street retail, with smaller and more unique experiences,” Padorr said.
When asked what would be a good fit for the now empty storefront, Golin said it would be neat if Merz Apothecary , a family-owned business in Lincoln Square that sells natural products along with its neighboring old-school shaving supplies shop Q Brothers, replaced Barry’s Drugs.
“It’s a fantastic store. I am a big fan of that kind of stuff,” Golin said.
In 2009, Hexagram Productions interviewed Golin for Chicago Pipeline:
