Niels Olsen: Renaissance Man

By Samuel McClain

“A man named Thomas P. Crapper invented the flush toilet, and there are man hole covers with his name on them inside Westminster Abbey,” Niels Olsen told me as we drove to one of the five apartment buildings he owns and maintains.  In technical terms Niels is a landlord.  He collects rent and manages the tenants in his buildings, but, in practical terms, Niels is a do-it-all maintenance man.   Not only can he explain the history of modern toilets, he can repair and install them too.

Niels has owned and rented property for over 30 years and has always done the maintenance work himself.  He has three garages, two basements, and an industrial space filled with scraps of wood, doorknobs, copper piping, power tools, sheet metal, and countless other pieces of junk he adapts and reuses again and again on his old buildings.  He can’t bring himself to throw anything away, and his organizational skills are nonexistent, but with his collection of secondhand tools and assortment of salvaged junk, he can, and will, fix anything.

The day these photographs were shot Niels traveled to three of his buildings to make repairs.  First he restored the water pressure in a shower, then replaced an electrical outlet on a fan, next he assembled and installed a heating unit, and finally climbed on to the roof to patch it with bits of tar, caulking, and a blowtorch.

Even with his impressive handy man skill set, Niels is best remembered for the things he says.  He recites one-liners and anecdotes that are often lewd and crude but always amusing.  As we drove to his building on the corner of Milwaukee and Damon Niels said, “Keep your camera ready we might see a bum molesting an old lady.”  Then he looked at me and with a dirty grin said, “Or maybe even an old lady molesting a bum.”  Later he explained how he once laid down his motorcycle in the rain.  “I was lucky I didn’t get hurt, but it scared the hell out of me.  Only me, my underpants, and my drycleaner know how scared I really was.”

Niels can be easily labeled as a foul-mouthed, blue-collar worker, but the man isn’t defined by the simple labor he does everyday.  He graduated with a degree in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he collects daguerreotypes, is an amateur economist, and an accomplished sailor.  He owns a 24-foot sail boat but hopes to upgrade to a larger vessel that he can sail through the great lakes into the Atlantic Ocean where he will head south to disappear into the Caribbean and retirement.  His dream of sailing is clear, but the timeline for departure is more ambiguous.  He is tied to his buildings.  They must be maintained or sold.  Niels knows he still has to invest more years of hard work into his property before he can escape on his boat, but he jokes that the only thing holding him back is, “A few bare breasted maidens to accompany me on my voyage.  You know the type, ones that will sit on my face so I can guess their weight.”

Niels can easily offend with his humor, but his intellect is as sharp as his tongue and he is able to offer a rare and experienced perspective of the world.  Neils told a story about visiting his father, who had become senile and at times angry, before he died.  In one outburst, his father told Niels and his mother to “Fuck off!” and said he was going to catch the next ship leaving port.  The story seems tragic but Niels seems to appreciate the irony and perhaps hopes he has a bit of his father’s spirit.