LINCOLN SQUARE — For more than 70 years, Becker Professional Pharmacy has been Lincoln Square's corner drugstore, an independent holdout surrounded by a sea of chains.
On Friday, pharmacist Alvin Klein, who bought the drugstore in 1972, will fill his last prescription.
"It's time to move on," he said.
Not that Klein, even at age 81, is exactly champing at the bit to retire, but the prescription drug business belongs to the major players, he said.
Speculation that Amazon is preparing to enter the market "ought to send shivers up everyone's spine," Klein said.
"I'm going to miss the interaction with people in the neighborhood and with customers I know by name. What I'm not going to miss are the bills and the paperwork," Klein said.
Becker Professional Pharmacy has been a fixture in Lincoln Square since 1943. [All photos DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]
Klein, a Rogers Park native, started his pharmacist career at Walgreens. Yep, he worked at the nearby store at the corner of happy and healthy Lawrence and Western avenues.
Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and knowing that Walgreens could move him at a moment's notice, Klein, who'd grown fond of Lincoln Square, decided to become his own boss when Bernie Becker put his shop up for sale.
Bernie founded the pharmacy in 1933 at Argyle and Damen, and moved the drugstore to 4744 N. Western Ave. in 1943, after a brief pit stop across the street where Pannenkoeken Cafe now serves up Dutch pancakes.
At the point when Klein took over the store, independent pharmacies weren't nearly the endangered species they'd soon become. Becker managed to survive by emphasizing customer service, Klein said, but also because he identified a need the chains couldn't, or wouldn't, fill.
The pharmacy became "kind of the go-to place" for what Klein calls "sick room supplies" — commodes, colostomy bags, traction equipment, prosthetic breasts and more.
As Becker's bare bones website puts it: "We are who we are. We tried greeting cards but we did better with catheters, canes and crutches."
"Our strong suit is our compression hose," which have gone "very high fashion," Klein said.
Though Klein has sold Becker's prescription files to Walgreens — and yes, he appreciates the irony of "what goes around, comes around" — the medical supply side of the business will remain in operation, just under a new owner.
"To the best of my knowledge, another person is finalizing the take over of the the front of the store," he said.
What comes next for Klein?
"I haven't really thought it out," he said.
"People are worried I'm going from 90 miles an hour to zero. It's going to be interesting," Klein said. "I don't plan on rusting out."
One burning question remained: Klein has now owned Becker longer than Bernie Becker. Why didn't he ever put his own name on the shop?
"I'm not ego-involved," he said. "The store had been here for 30 years."
So how many people have walked in over the decades and mistakenly called him Mr. Becker?
"All of them," Klein said.
Becker Professional Pharmacy will no longer fill prescriptions after Friday. Klein and staff will still be at the shop through Tuesday, when they hand the operation over to the new owners.
Maureen Seng (left) has worked at the pharmacy for 30 years. Luminita Costin is a relative "newcomer," joining the team 17 years ago.
As Becker's bare bones website puts it: "We are who we are. We tried greeting cards but we did better with catheters, canes and crutches."
A news article from 2008, hanging in the pharmacy, shows what Becker's facade looked like before a recent building improvement.
Becker will fill its last prescription Friday. Files are being moved to the Walgreens at Lawrence and Western, which, ironically, is where Alvin Klein worked before buying Becker.
