Our local camera store in business since 1899
CHICAGO- As I knocked on the glass window under the brightly lit vintage sign, a man inside Central Camera looked up from organizing lenses and motioned me to come inside.
I stood towards the front of the building, quietly watching as Central Camera employees shuffled around the store, preparing for the day. On a table in the center of the room, parts of old cameras piled out of cardboard boxes, labeled with a “for sale” sign.
Chicago’s local camera store, Central Camera, opened at its first location in 1899. After 30 years, the camera shop moved off of Adams Street to its current location.
The store sits a block away from the Adams and Wabash CTA stop, just a street down from the Art Institute. It has served generations of photographers, from professionals seeking high-end lenses to students buying their first rolls of black-and-white film.
Albert Flesch, the founder and original owner of Central Camera, immigrated to Chicago from Hungary alone at 13 years old with a diary and his family’s dreams. After working at camera shops in Chicago for almost a decade, Flesch opened Central Camera. Over a century later, the family’s legacy continues.
Despite the rise of digital technology and the fall of countless small retailers, Central Camera has endured, a testament to the loyalty of Chicago’s photography community. But its survival hasn’t come without struggle.
In May 2020, the store was badly damaged by a fire during a city-wide protest. The fire began in the basement, taking approximately six hours to put out. Around 10,000 items from the shop’s inventory were destroyed, but the store was able to rebuild.
“We took it one step at a time,” said Charles Ezaki, an employee of 29 years at Central Camera. “First we had this little tent set up and tables set out front, then we moved next door as soon as we could get inside and stuff in there.”
The store raised nearly $230,000 through a GoFundMe campaign. Chicagoans were more than enthusiastic to help rebuild the store.
One donor, Paul Stamler, wrote: “When I was in high school in the 1960s, on Saturday afternoons I practically lived in the camera stores on Wabash — Wolk’s, Altman’s and Central. About 15 years ago I visited the lone survivor, Central, and bought a lens hood. I’m sorry to learn of the store’s recent misfortune, and glad I can do a bit to help restore a place and pursuit that were, pardon the expression, central to my life.”
The campaign stands as a testament to the community Central Camera has formed.
The store has been through numerous changes since its beginnings, and especially since the fire.
“I used to come to this store all the time growing up,” said Gia Syed, a 20-year-old sophomore at DePaul University. “My mom is a photographer so I would drive to the city with her to look at different cameras and lenses and just spend the day shooting film. It’s something really close to my heart.”
Rolling out an old photograph of the store, taken on black and white film, Ezaki shows me what Central Camera looked like before 2020. Thousands of cameras lined the walls, creating a beautiful scene of organized chaos.
“It’s the same space, just 100 years of cigarette smoke,” Khoubaev said, chuckling to her co-worker.
Now in its 126th year, Central Camera’s foundational principles still stand strong. Flesch’s love for photography has spanned through generations, and will continue to spread, as long as we keep it alive.
“Keep doing film,” Ezaki said. “Keep it going. The more you shoot film the more it grows. The more we do it the more people can see how cool it is … Keep shooting, have fun.”
Header Image by Simrah Qasim
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