Cermak Plaza in Berwyn, Illinois used to be a fun place to shop. Not anymore today.

[traveller]

A long time ago, as recently as the 1990s, the Cermak Plaza Shopping center, located just off of Cermak Road and Harlem Avenue in Chicago's west suburb of Berwyn, used to be a fun place to shop, hang out, socialize, and enjoy the artwork. My favorite was always the Crazy Clock. They had lots of other beautiful artwork, artwork made of glass and mirrors that refracted and reflected sunlight, making really neat light patterns, including rainbows. They had glass beads strung on strings which looked really beautiful in the sunlight. They had a station with steel drums where you could make music and practice musical notes. They had a wheel thing called "Out of the Fire into the Frying Pan" where you look through the slots between the portraits and spin the wheel to create like a motion picture. They also had the iconic Spindle, which was 8 cars skewered on a 50 foot tall steel spike. They had the Windamajig, which was really neat. They had a "trash tree" which was old appliances, including a few embedded old fans that windmilled in the wind. They had a wooden helicopter made of oars and boards. They had a yellow car that had it's sides pulled out and flattened against a wall. They had a wavy mirror that made weird and fun reflections. They also had a "Bee hive," which was kind of like a junior version of the Windamajig. They also had this neat playground with sunflowers that you could spin, along with towering purple flower structures around the perimeter. The iridescent colored reflectors mounted on the light poles were also really neat.

All of that made Cermak Plaza a fun and neat place to go shopping. Woolworth's had a small cafe where you could have a cheeseburger or two and some neat treats while shopping and browsing around.

But sadly, it all came to an end in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The Spindle was dismantled and cut down on May 2nd, 2008. All of the other artwork in the plaza (the Windamajig, the Crazy Clock, the flattened yellow car, the helicopter, the trash tree, the drum station, the "Out of the Fire into the Frying Pan" wheel, the wavy mirror, the playground with the spinning sunflowers, the Bee Hive, the stringed beads, the mirror and glass sculptures, the iridescent reflectors on the light poles, you name it) was also removed from the Cermak Plaza. Today, the Cermak Plaza is none more than just another cookie cutter business where everyone is in and out in a mad hurry. It's just another stark, bare, and boring place where the only thing to do is shop and leave.