The next time I need a nail, a screwdriver or a couple of hours of interesting conversation, I’ll head over to the Ace Hardware store at 1208 W. Grand Ave. It is a cozy and cluttered neighborhood hardware store in an age of sprawling megastores. Its owner, Joe Swiatek, is something of a novelty too, a man of palpable passion for Chicago and its history, a man who collects things, a great many things.
Some of these things are in his store: small steam engines that were once the playthings of wealthy kids around the turn of the last century, police badges, a case full of “figural desktop advertising” (paperweights), toy trains, letter openers, locks, key chains and many items from Chicago’s two world’s fairs, the Century of Progress and the Columbian Exposition. None of it, except for some Lionel trains, is for sale. A casual visitor here, seeking hardware, might not notice any of Swiatek’s stuff, which also includes (Rosebud-like) a little red cart that he has had since he was 10.
“That’s when it started, as a kid,” says the 56-year-old. “First it was trains and then Chicago history items–anything about the city.”
He grew up in the neighborhood in which he works and still lives, one of five children of a plumber and a housewife. He is, in his face, accent, attitudes and manner, a member of that vanishing breed known as a “neighborhood guy.” He has run the hardware store for more than two decades. He has been married to an understanding woman named Darlene for more than 30 years.
“She’s been real supportive but she’ll only let me have the nice stuff in the house,” he says.
The couple have no children and their apartment contains such “nice stuff” as clocks and prints. The rest of the stuff, which includes antique cars, doorknobs, brewery and Coca-Cola advertising signs, gold coins, toys, more trains, more world’s fair items, more everything, is stored in safe-deposit boxes and in a suburban warehouse that is, Swiatek says, “so jammed you can’t even move.”
“How many items do I have?” he asks rhetorically. “More than 10,000? Way more.”
Spend any time with Swiatek and you’ll come to appreciate it when he says, “Look at this,” because it is always followed by a short, happy trip–to the garage out back to see ornate gates from an old church or to a shelf inside to see a clock made in honor of fan dancer Sally Rand.
He finds this stuff at flea markets and antique shows across the country, or gets it from friends and other collectors. He could sell parts of his collection for a lot of money to other collectors or museums. They call. He says, “No, thanks.”
He also says this: “Yeah, collecting is kind of like a narcotic. But the enjoyment . . . everything I got tells a story, takes me on a trip into the past. I’ve been lucky. I find what I’m looking for and there’s nothing like touching something from the past. It’s like magic.”
