When he began a career in commercial real estate almost two decades ago, Elli Klapper and his father had a talk. They come from a family of modern Orthodox Jews, but Klapper’s dad urged his son not to wear a yarmulke to the office. The elder Klapper, who worked for the city of New York, worried that wearing a yarmulke could hurt his son's career, causing him to become a target of discrimination.
Klapper decided to wear it anyway. “I said, ‘Abba, that was your generation,’” recalls Klapper, who was raised in Queens and now works with investment properties in Teaneck, New Jersey. “We don't have these problems that you did.’ And I was wrong. I was wrong.” Now, 18 years later, he understands where his father was coming from. Klapper says he constantly experiences antisemitism in his business. He can’t quantify the number of times he’s been told to stop “jewing” people down when negotiating. Recently, he brought a real estate client to view a large property owned by an Orthodox Jew. At the end of the meeting, in the company of Klapper and four other people, the client asked a question. “He said, ‘So, if I want to buy a piece of real estate here, I'm going to have to deal with Jews, right?’ I didn't understand what he meant,” Klapper says. “I’m like, ‘Uh, I don't—these are really good guys—we could try to cut a deal.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, but, you know, is there any way I don't have to deal with any Jews?’”
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The town of Atlanta lies in the center of Illinois, halfway between Chicago and St. Louis. So, when the city council was faced with the task of repainting the local water tower, there was a choice to make: Cubs or Cardinals.
Fans of each team campaigned for their emblem to grace the tower. Bill Thomas, chairman of the board of the National Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership, recalls the remedy to the dispute. “There wasn’t going to be an easy resolution,” Thomas said. “So at one of the council meetings, a councilwoman named Billie Cheek, offhandedly, to throw out something completely different, said, ‘Well I think it should just be a smiley face. That would make everybody happy.’” At Valentine Station in Valentine, Arizona, owner Ruben Rodarte is used to the noise of passing vehicles driving down Route 66. He can usually tell what’s coming his way by the sound: cars, trucks, semis. Every so often, though, the noise isn’t placeable.
“So you know when something different is coming,” Rodarte said. “Maybe. Like, ‘look up.’ And it’s amazing to see, whether it’s a group of lamborghinis, or a circus train, or just a weird vehicle, or something. I mean, stuff you can’t even describe. Like, ‘What the hell did I just see?’ And I have to run it back on the security camera. ‘Yeah that was something that looked like a rocket going down the road, I’m not crazy.’” From his post at the station, where he lives, Rodarte has seen travelers walking, running, pushing a stroller, in horse-drawn buggies, pushing a shopping cart and carrying full-sized crosses. When driving down Route 66, any traveler is bound to see scores of vintage cars. But likely, only one of those vehicles is parked on the roof of a salon.
Such is the case for the DeSoto’s AirBnB in Ash Fork, Arizona. It’s Thursday night in Midland, Mich. For one group of high school teachers, that means game night. Pre-pandemic, they met at a local bar for trivia, but now they play through laptop webcams in their homes. Some have changed their video feed backgrounds to aquariums or personal photos. John Mulvaney, a history and economics teacher, ironically wears a “Trump 2020” ballcap.
“I got it from the dollar store,” he says. “You overpaid,” says Shelli Wixtrom, a history teacher. The top floor of the Mundelein Center for the Fine and Performing Arts in Chicago provides a glittering skyline view and a quiet, peaceful place to work or think. Unless it’s 7:30 on a Wednesday night, when one might hear nine students shouting:
“Anal beads! Insert! Insert! Anal beads!” The 45 Kings, Loyola University Chicago’s improv comedy group, hold practice on the 14th floor once a week from 7-9:30 p.m.. On the desk next to the shouting circle is a heavily iced, store-bought cake. It’s Ash Wednesday. “More like Ass Wednesday!” Ben Stringer said. Though the staff of Red Door Animal Shelter leave at 5 p.m. each day, someone is always watching over the cats. He wears a crooked smile and a plaid jacket, and his eyes peer through thick spectacles from a framed portrait reading, “Evanston’s Cat Whisperer Supreme.”
His origins are a mystery to the staff. “I just know that it was a guy who was heavily involved with the shelter,” assistant manager Laura Kiblin said. “I think after he passed away, some of his finances were donated to us. So we got a little photo with a plaque to commemorate him. But I never met him.” None of the staff on duty have. “I know the guy was pretty revered,” staff member Patrick Napier said. “Because a cat knocked the picture off the wall, and it was like no, we gotta put that back up.” The cats declined to comment. |