Memory Bank

The shabby man was sitting at a desk in the bank’s grand lobby, poking coins into a sleeve, talking about Mary Tyler Moore.

“They shot the credits to the show over in the IDS Center before it opened,” he said. He had finished with the quarters and was now sorting out the dimes and nickels. “That’s why it’s so empty.”

“Right,” I said. “And the guy she was having lunch with, up in that balcony? That was her husband. At the time.”

He did not know that and was pleased to learn it. I was at the nearby teller’s window, waiting for the confirmation terminal to reboot. I’d made a deposit, and the little pad that required me to tap accept had frozen. The teller and her boss were working on it.

The man with the coins was in a good mood, and so was I, for the following bank-related reasons:

1. It is always better to deposit than withdraw, and I was depositing. In fact I was socking away my check from National Review, albeit pocketing a few bills for walking-around money.
2. The bank is a grand space — chilly and formal like most classic banks. Most modern banks have no more gravitas than a fast-food counter. This one, finished in 1988, rose from the cinders of a catastrophic fire that brought down its predecessor on Thanksgiving Day, 1982. Several ornate light fixtures had been saved and restored and now hung high above us.
3. The lollipops were back. Years ago, the tellers offered free Dum-Dum suckers to all patrons. If you were lucky, you’d get one of the mystery flavors. As Dum-Dum lore has it, they don’t completely clean out the vats between batches but pour a new flavor right into the just-emptied one. So there might be a ghost of grape in the new batch of strawberry. You never knew.

Then a guy came by, took the whole jar, and said he was going to give them out on the bus. That was that.

But now they were back! The social compact has been restored!

Not much else was back, though. The teller cages downstairs had been boarded up. The museum that had relics from the old bank had closed and been emptied out. On any given afternoon, there’s one teller. The old building, the ’20s structure that burned, had over 125.

The coin man and I chatted until the teller gave up and said we’d have to do this the old-fashioned way: paper and signature. Then she counted out my cash. She was one of those tellers who understand that all the bills should be face-up and none should be upside-down. After that, I asked her manager to notarize something, and it felt as if we were back in 1928. Coins! Deposit slips! Signatures on paper!

Oh, I could deposit the check through my bank’s phone app, but I like to go to the bank. Chat with the teller, get some folding green, enjoy the great serene civic space of the banking hall.

That’s why I hate the idea of an all-digital currency. Never mind the tracking and de-banking and social-credit snooping — we all suspect that digibux will eventually drive out the comforting sheaf of greenbacks in your back pocket, as well as chatting with the teller.

A great loss? No; none of these incremental diminutions that attended the Covid rewrite of society are great losses in themselves, but they add up. One day we’ll look back on the marvelous, solemn old banking halls and regard them the way we view the ruins of Roman baths. An era of egalitarian glory, built by giants.

The fellow with the coins cashed them in for some bills and took a sucker. We nodded goodbye: Stay dry, s’posed to be a cold rain tomorrow. The notary finished up, pressing his inked seal down with care and practiced pressure. It seems like the most corruptible thing you can imagine, but you know it isn’t. Who ever met a dishonest notary?

My sucker was not a mystery flavor, but if you want a combo of the new poured into the vessel of the old, going downtown to deposit a check is a good place to start. A good way to remember what made cities vital and interesting places, before everyone went home and locked the doors and left the streets to tourists and the occasional howling indigent. You hope it comes back. You wonder if it ever will.

Lest I sound ridiculously nostalgic: I got a pineapple sucker, and I absolutely hate that flavor.