Currency Exchange is a Nickel and Dime Business

Neil Steinberg's column today in the Chicago Sun-Times has a surprising ending. He writes about an interesting Chicago character, Arnie Berezin, who has run a small currency exchange business for years:

Neva Evans has spent most of the last decade in a Jewel shopping bag tucked away in the cluttered back room at the Ashland-Diversey Currency Exchange.

Or at least her earthly remains have, ashes in a funerary jar with a mother-of-pearl finish.

"Good morning, Neva," the owner of the currency exchange, Arnie Berezin, would say as he begins each day at 5 a.m. -- which he does, seven days a week, cashing checks and issuing money orders in a tiny alcove decorated with business cards and rolls of coins. A $400 money order costs 85 cents.

"I'm a nickel-and-dime business," says Berezin, 62. "We don't get rich here."

If anyone knows Lisa Grace, Michelle Grace, Felicia Grace, Patricia Baker, Iris Heard or Dwayne Adams, Steinberg has something for you.

Hat Tip: 11111001111

Journalism · 2009/03/11 · 0 COMMENTS · Link