Disgraced junk bond financier Michael Milken opens the Center for Advancing the American Dream in Washington DC.
{{ Yet Mr. Milken and the friends-slash-donors whose beaming faces dangle off a faux gold “Tree of Generations” that looms over the center’s atrium are going full-on free enterprise. In exhibits, videos and artificial intelligence-bolstered holograms, they argue that the key to life is money, or the ability to get it. }}
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The curiosities come early and often at the free-to-enter Milken Center, which opened to the public last Saturday. It occupies the defunct headquarters of a bank that closed in a money-laundering scandal two decades ago, now lavishly spiffed up in a gilded style that wouldn’t be out of place in the renovated Oval Office across the street.
In some ways, it’s the opportune time for an altar to opportunism. }}
The bank of my childhood (one block walk from our house) was a large, impressive temple to solid savings. The exterior was (as I recall) granite and brick. The interior was vast, with a high ceiling. The floor was marble. The tellers had marble window sills with ornate brass window guards.
The back wall of the bank, which was very large, was covered by an elaborate mural (probably painted during the Depression during the WPA) showing a harbor with the roots of prosperity – a trading ship, wagons with grain, many workers and a triumphant man holding his child on his shoulder with his sturdy wife next to him. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t have a record of this.
As a child, I was issued a small, brown bank book with my name and numbers that recorded my deposits (gifts, earnings from baby sitting and interest payments) which sparked my passion for saving.
This bank was the diametric opposite of the Milken operation.
I remember what Wendy remembered of my first bank, right down to the teller who told me the classic “spiel of how to save at YOUR bank, and why you should.”
What I miss was the human element of the bank security. In the late 70’s, when I was actually accumulating significant savings, someone of my age and somewhat similar appearance tried to access my account. He had phonied up ID. That teller sent him to “my teller” who asked “So, how was ‘glampers’ (what surfers and lifeguards called a peculiar spot of sometimes superb surf where an old pier had left behind stone footings) this morning?” She told me later the guy ran out faster than a gazelle.
We haven’t used a ‘Bank’ in over 50+ years, triggered by a local B of A branch that made it a habit of pulling all the checks off our account before tossing in the Deposits! Those days were snug, so it once too often had tripped an overdraft fee, when in reality, there was no overdraft at all.. Teller, manager, don’t remember for sure stuffed it off as being our fault, I remember pointing across the shopping center to another local bank, reminding him there were options.. We did pull out, went to that other bank for a while, but it’s management changed, gave me a bad time when I wanted to cash in a stack of US Savings bonds, so that day, went to another branch, completed the cashing, but ended up moving on to a local Credit Union, been there ever since… We reported the branch manager to the Feds for refusing to cash the bonds, it was rediculous, the teller had already calculated all the values, but the manager vetoed the actual cash out… Won’t darken the original bank ever again… Our CU has been great, everyone is ready to handle any of our needs, many online payments, access, vault… Nope, don’t need a Banker!
I dumped B of A once they instituted a fee for “free”, 0% interest checking. Same thing for Wells Fargo when they instituted a sudden unwanted fee on checking in what was the early stages of their giant consumer fraud. Have had free checking at the local Credit Union in the 15 years since I dumped Wells Fargo.
All I remember of Wells was that my parents banked there, along the way, the manager talked them out of gold coins, not a lot, but if we’d known we would have bought 'em.. Gave me a hard time after Dad passed, needed access to the safety deposit box for the will, but, not a fun thing in any case…