Memories: Earwax closed after twenty-one years

When people die, we do an obituary.When businesses close, for the most part, we see another empty store front. But when a neighborhood "institution" like Earwax, 1561 N. Milwaukee, closes, a lot of people want to know why and then they want to share memories and do some collective public mourning.

About the only thing that has been reported so far is that there were "financial reasons" for the closure. In investigating, Our Urban Times has learned that Nicholas Murray, who owned Earwax, and/or a family member, also owns the building at 1561 N. Milwaukee. OUT is attempting to reach Mr. Murray for more information and comment about about the property.

In the meantime, let the memories flow...

Jennifer Bisbing's Wicker Women photo exhibit of women in Wicker Park includes small write-ups from some of those photographed. Three include memories of Earwax.

Leah Dugan writes:
I first experienced Wicker Park as a teenager, in 2000. I was visiting my older brother, and his girlfriend who, at the time, was getting a tattoo. We ventured with her to Wicker to a parlor inside the Flat Iron Building. Having only a nominal attention span for watching someone I barely know get a three-hour tattoo, I found myself wandering around the neighborhood, in awe.

Wicker was a charming mix of Hispanic food, culture, and families and the rougher-edged bohemian crowd. I ended up wandering into Earwax, it was insanely hot inside and strange circus-themed posters and decorations surrounded me. I enjoyed coffee and cigarettes, while reading my book, feeling as if I had just waltzed into a Tom Waits song.

...In the past seven years, I have watched the neighborhood change quite a bit; there has been an unsettling homogenization accompanied with a surge of young urban professionals. I still frequent Earwax. Although it has since moved across the street and down half a block, the coffee is still good, it is still as stifling hot as ever, and the decor is still just as fucking weird.

Stephanie Sacks writes:
In 1992, I came down from the Loop via the Milwaukee Avenue bus and got off at six corners to attend a riot grrrl meeting at the old Earwax, we were going to change the world! I could really feel the neighborhood's kinetic and frantic energy; it was palpable, tangible, and irresistible.

During our meeting in the clownish room, for some reason the group leader didn't want to be called a riot grrrl so we spent the whole time trying to come up with some sort of name or acronym to more accurately reflect her young feminist agenda. Reflecting now it was just hilarious.

In 1997, I was a freshman at The School of the Art Institute. I barely ever left the Loop for fear of getting lost. My friend Teddy had a car (a true luxury). He picked me up and we went to Earwax Cafe, a funny, circus-like restaurant that had great art house and independent video rentals in the basement. It was a colorful oasis in a sea of shoddy furniture stores in the nucleus of Wicker Park.

I remember the yellow glowing light from Swank Frank's and the dodgy characters in the street. There was a scene in Flatliner's where Kiefer Sutherland walked up to six corners (Milwaukee/Damen/North) with cyclists zooming by that captured this neighborhood all so well. This 1990 movie portrayed Wicker Park as dark yet charged with energy. Little did I know that I would return to Wicker Park to live thirteen years later; Swank Frank's gone and Earwax on the wrong side of the street.

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Photos by: Tim Kolecke