Finding resilience in secondhand goods

It’s 4 a.m. in Rosemont, Illinois, and Wolff’s Flea Market is coming to life on a chilly October night (or, for most people, morning). I arrive a bit disoriented to the parking lot of Allstate Arena when I see Debbie Gallo speed walking toward me. She’s pushing her cart with a flashlight in hand, having already scavenged the darkness for an hour and a half. Gallo scoops me up and we’re off, weaving up and down the aisles of vendors as I quicken my pace to keep up with her. 

Gallo’s energy radiates in the cool air as she rattles off to me all the different vendors that are setting up, laying out a verbal map of who has the best stuff and the best deals. For Gallo, this is a weekly Sunday ritual. She’s on a mission.

Debbie Gallo prices new items in Chicago’s Shangri-La Vintage on September 26, 2024. While always paying attention to trends, Gallo especially curates 70s clothing for her shop. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

Gallo runs Shangri-La Vintage, a small secondhand store nestled in Chicago’s Roscoe Village. Filled with bright patterns, eclectic hats, a plethora of accessories and quality clothing, Shangri-La has been a neighborhood cornerstone since Gallo and her husband, Jim, opened the shop in 1992. 

“When we opened, we had clothing but we also had used books, records, toys, comics…a little bit of everything,” Gallo said.

Prior to opening Shangri-La, Debbie and Jim would supplement their day jobs by selling vintage goods in their free time. The couple, who met at Northern Illinois University, lived around the corner when Shangri-La’s space popped up for rent in the early ‘90s. 

“Originally, we would open on the weekends,” Gallo said. “When we both lost our jobs, we switched to seven days a week.” 

Gallo and her husband worked tirelessly to keep their shop running, building a reputation within the community as a reliable source for quality vintage goods. The duo ran Shangri-La together for years, often one of them tending to the store while the other hunted for new finds or washed inventory at a laundromat down the street. 

Debbie Gallo, right, helps a customer try on a bracelet in Shangri-La Vintage in Chicago on September 22, 2024. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

Vintage goods sit on display in Shangri-La Vintage on September 26, 2024. The store used to house a collection of used books, records, comics and toys in addition to clothing before e-tailers like Amazon grew in popularity in the early 2000s. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

Debbie Gallo tends to her store in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood on Sunday, September 22, 2024. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

Roscoe Village was much different in the ‘90s, housing “funky” breakfast places like the Daily Planet, independent coffee shops and cheap Mexican restaurants.

Once a working-class neighborhood that attracted artists and students, Gallo was involved in the community’s music scene during the late ‘80s, even befriending a young Nirvana and gifting Kurt Cobain mohair sweaters (his favorite).   

Debbie Gallo, owner of Shangri-La Vintage, stands outside her store in Roscoe Village on September 26, 2024. Gallo remembers when Roscoe was once filled with tiny frame homes and workman cottages. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

During the early 2000s real-estate boom, the city came into Roscoe Village and started condemning buildings left and right. The Gallos were forced to relocate twice, once with only a couple of months’ notice. 

“Somebody had bought the building and they wanted our unit, so we had to get out,” Gallo said. “Then we found one over on Belmont, and then that one got sold. We just said ‘We’re getting the heck out of here.’”

Roscoe began to change shape as developers replaced charismatic homes with condo buildings. Small businesses morphed into higher-end storefronts. 

“This block had a hardware store, a pharmacy, a grocery store … It was all on this street,” Gallo said. “It’s just gone.” 

Despite this shift, the people have stayed the same. Debbie told me she has customers who have stuck with Shangri-La all 33 years. 

“There’s some people who used to come here in high school, and now they’re bringing their kids in,” said Gallo. 

Debbie and Jim continued to trade days at Shangri-La until 2019, when Jim, who had been struggling with poor eyesight, lost his vision completely due to retinal detachment.

Emergency surgery can usually fix the issue, but between setbacks like referrals and concerns over the health of Jim’s heart, there was almost a month delay, and the procedure came too late.

“All of a sudden, he woke up one morning and he just couldn’t see,” Gallo said. “It was very, very traumatic.”

The visual nature of the business meant Jim could no longer help run Shangri-La. 

“I just kind of took over the store, trying to do it seven days a week by myself, and I was like, ‘I can’t,’” said Gallo.

A GoFundMe page was set up by a friend to help the couple through this critical month. It was at this time that the community the couple had built for 30 years stepped forward. With over a hundred donations, the fundraiser doubled its goal.

Debbie Gallo sifts through a bin of used clothes in the early morning at Wolff’s Flea Market in Rosemont on October 13, 2024. Gallo arrives around 2 a.m., saying the trick to keeping momentum is “to never sit down” until she opens her shop later that day. Photo by Linnea Cheng.

After keeping the business afloat throughout these challenges and the pandemic, Gallo was met with another setback a few years later, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the fall of 2023. 

Unable to lift anything for six weeks after surgery, Gallo was forced to close her store while undergoing treatment. Again, people in the community showed up for the small-business owners.

“My customers were wonderful and supportive,” Gallo said. “My neighbors around here are all really great. They all went out of their way to be nice.” 

A friend set up another GoFundMe page to help cover medical bills and shop expenses. The fundraiser surpassed its goal by $3,000. Others checked in and offered to help run the store. 

A little over a year later, Gallo has kicked cancer’s butt. 

“There’s always that worry that it’ll come back, but you can’t spend your time worrying about that,” Gallo said. “You just gotta kinda live for the moment.” 

Gallo now keeps the shop open Thursdays through Sundays. She takes the rest of the week to source around Chicagoland and spend time with Jim.

Through it all, Gallo’s determination and easygoing attitude keeps Shangri-La’s heart beating. 

“As you get older … you don’t sweat the small stuff,” Gallo said. “You take more time to enjoy yourself.” 

Debbie Gallo watches over her store in Chicago’s Roscoe Village on September 26, 2024. Shangri-La Vintage is one of the few lasting establishments from the artist-centric community it once inhabited thirty years ago. Photo by Linnea Cheng.