The passing of another American icon of our childhoods, Jim Lovell, has made me nostalgic for some of the other Americans later in my life.
Having been collecting toys since 1989 some of the places I visited Stateside have also gone. Here are just a few threads of gossamer to a lost American world.
Alphaville
Alphaville was a vintage toys and collectables store I visited with my Missus in New York City way back in 2001 on my 40th birthday trip to the Big Apple.
The store was packed with fabulous mint and beautifully packaged toys and kitsch, a true Aladdin's cave. I was thrilled to be there having discovered them first as an online vintage toys shop, one of the earliest I can recall just as eBay was imported here from the States went live in the UK in 2000.
Remnants of Alphaville still exist online including the two gorgeous bits of artwork here, typical of the cool retro-lounge imagery of their website, a work of art in itself and a joy to browse. I really do miss Alphaville. It closed in 2010.
Toy Scouts Inc.
What can I say about Toy Scouts Inc? Only that their founder Bill Breugman single-handedly introduced me to a much wider world of vintage toys, than I hitherto knew about, in his fantastic book from the early 1990's, Toys of the Sixties, which I bought in 1993.
Bill wrote the History of Aurora too, which I have, as well as publishing one of the seminal American vintage toy collecting magazines, Model and Toy Collector.
I used to subscribe to Bill's auction catalogue, the heart of Toy Scouts Inc., and the one or two copies I have are prized possessions, jam-packed as they are with delicious collectables years before eBay. I think Toy Scouts are sadly no more.
Midtown Comics
This was another place we visited in 2001 in NYC, a large and well-known comics shop. I was stunned by the amount of stock they had and came away with a beautiful modern Green Hornet lunchbox and repro Captain Action Green Hornet outfit, both items for my toy fair stall I had back then.
I imagine, unlike the first two here, Midtown have gone from strength to strength given the popularity of comics and graphic novels.
Strand Bookstore
Again, in the January of 2001 the Missus and me spent a happy hour in this fabulous New York book shop, which I seem to recall being not too far from the business district of Wall Street and the ill-fated World Trade Center.
It was - and may well be still - a superb bookstore and the section on collecting toys a real treat. I was a fan of John Toyzilla Marshall back then so jumped at the chance of increasing my books by him, namely Comic Heros of the 1960's, a tome I still love to leaf through.
I hope the Strand has thrived and thrived.
Happy days
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Do you know any of these readers?
I haven't been back to NYC since 2004 I think, when we moved to Los Angeles, but I certainly remember The Strand. I also liked The Compleat Strategist, a gaming store. And way, way back in the 1970s, The Federation Trading Post, a Star Trek store. NYC was a treat for many, many reasons.
ReplyDeleteAnd how do you find LA Baron? Is there a good collecting scene there or other things you enjoy?
DeleteThe funny thing about the Alphaville store when I first visited it was finding that one of the owners had been an advertising salesman at The New York Daily News and I had worked with him on many ads for the paper. Who knew we had similar interests.
ReplyDeleteThe branch of the Strand Bookstore you visited was probably the one off Wall Street near the World Trade Center site. That branch closed after 9/11 when downtowns economy went belly up. The original store was/is on Broadway at 12th Street near NYC's Forbidden Planet.
Midtown Comics has a few locations now, and yes it has gone from strength to strength.
The Complete Strategist is still there on East 33rd Street near the Empire State Building, very useful for paints. I once bought 28mm Dr Who figures there.
Fab update that Terran. Thanks. I'm sad the Wall Street strand store closed but glad the brand survived in others. I thought Midtown C would do well. It was probably old when I visited in 2001. And I might have guessed the Alphaville person had an advertising history. His choice of online graphics and the website overall were just very classy.
DeleteAh, forgot one more store in NYC, FAO Schwarz, especially great at xmas. LA is very different. You pretty much don't go downtown, as opposed to Manhattan in NYC. There are different neighborhoods spread out across two valleys, but they're mostly like being in the suburbs only with fewer trees. Both NYC and LA have great live music, but I gotta go with NYC's museums. Central Park is also better than Griffith Park, which is mostly wilderness. Parking is generally better in LA, depends on where you want to go. Public transportation is hideously useless in LA. As for fannish attractions in LA there are a few comic stores that have toys and collectors items and gaming materials, but they're very widely scattered and some have gone out of business. There's a big collector's fair that happens regularly but it's a long drive and I haven't visited yet. A few local conventions where you can score some neat stuff. Bottom line is that I don't think I'd fit in with NYC today, I wouldn't raise a family there, and I don't miss the bad weather. But there was nothing like it back in the day, and I miss those days.
ReplyDeleteSadly FAO Schwarz bit the dust years ago, the store on 5th Avenue that is, the one featured in the movie BIG. The name was purchased by Toys R Us, which in turn bit the dust. Now FAO Schwarz sites pop up in airports and department stores selling toys that can be purchased anywhere else. No longer exclusive lines of toys.
DeleteThanks Baron. I know nothing of LA other than in the movies, which isn't real life. Fascinating stuff you've written to be honest.
DeleteThanks Terran. I did wonder where the brand went. I have to ask now about Maceys and Kmart. Are they still around?
DeleteBoth Macy's and Kmart are around. Macy's recently closed a bunch of locations but the main store in Manhattan is still around. It's toy department is now a FAO Swartz location.
DeleteGreat memories, these places live on in our minds. And we can visit them (sort of) any time we like!
ReplyDeleteHere here Looey!
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