Central Camera Co.
More than a hundred years ago, plated, photographic images took minutes to record and days to develop. Today, digital images can be taken and viewed in seconds, then downloaded and sent across the world in minutes. Opened in 1899, Central Camera was there when George Eastman introduced the roll camera. Although they stock all of the most up-to-date digital cameras and gear, they are also experts in a medium that many artistic photographers and hobbyists still prefer—film. The Flesch family has run Central Camera for four generations and counting. Originated by Albert Flesch, who immigrated to Chicago from a Jewish section of Hungary, the senior Flesch discovered photography when he began working in the photo department of Siegel Cooper, a downtown department store in 1894. He operated Central Camera at 31 E. Adams from 1899-1907. During that time George Eastman held the patent on the photography industry, and his store was closed several times over legal patent issues. In February of 1929 Flesch moved the store to its current location at 230 S. Wabash by hiring fifty people to pass boxes down Wabash like a human chain. Over the next eighty years the Flesch family saw the development of cameras through the Exacta, Leica and Zeiss lenses, and the Polaroid Camera of Edward Land. The store is currently run by grandson Albert D. Flesch, and his children Rai and Shira. Flesch began working at the store in 1961, and has seen the coming of the digital age. Yet if you walk across the creaky wooden floors and peer into the old wood and plate-glass cabinets, you can not only see and buy old cameras, light meters, lenses and even black-and-white film, you can actually get advice from a knowledgeable salesperson who knows how to use them.
230 S. Wabash
(312)427-5580
centralcamera.com
Best of Chicago 2008
