A Plaque in Situ

Went downtown again today and took a walk from Union Station to the event I was attending, some blocks away. It was clear and windy, and a little chilly – low 50s F., I’d say. I skipped wearing a topcoat, so I was a little chilly myself, and that kept me walking.

I try to keep a lookout for new detail on walks like that. On LaSalle, just north of the Chicago River, there’s a fairly new condo building on the east side of the street, one of many such properties in the area. On the first floor, there’s a 7-11 convenience store, and on the wall outside the entrance to the 7-11, there’s a plaque I’d never noticed before.

I didn’t read all of it, since I wanted to keep walking, but the gist was that this store was the franchise’s 25,000th, opened for business on July 9, 2003. There must be somewhat more now, but whatever the exact number, that’s the same league as McDonald’s.

That stat ought to boggle the mind in some way, but it leaves me indifferent. 7-11 never was our brand of choice growing up—Lone Star Ice & Foods was, a South Texas brand that might not even exist any more. But we didn’t use the name much anyway: we simply went to “the ice house.” 7-11 is no ice house, just a place that sells overpriced processed foods.

I wonder about the plaque, though. Eventually, even the 7-11 brand will disappear. Sic transit gloria mundi. Which will last longer, the brand or this marker commemorating its vastness? Will the workman—workbot—pry the plaque loose in some distant decade because 7-11 became something else or because the store closed or even the building was slated for demolition, and no one at 7-11 cared to save this bit of its history? Or will some hard to predict fad for antique plaques seize the world in the 2150s, and this one fetch a sizable amount of whatever currency is in use, sold at auction at by the successor entity of Sotheby’s?