General control line discussion > AS TIME GOES BYE

Hobby shops in L.A. area?

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FLOYD CARTER:
I think this topic has been covered.  However, I would like to talk with anyone who visited some hobby shops in the L.A. area during the '40s to '6os

I lived in South Gate and Downey during that time.  My closest shop was Walt's in South Gate.  After I was able to drive, I visited Snyders in south L.a., home of Modelcraft kit models.  In the mid 1950s, I worked with Bob Dunham establishing his hobby shop and helping with the design of his Orbit 10 channel reed receiver.

I never got around to visiting any of the shops in East L.A.

Tony Drago:
Floyd. Back in the day. A fellow coworker. His father owned a hobby shop.
 It was called Hobby Lane. I just can not remember its location. He relocated the business to Fountain Valley in the early to mid 70's. He finally retired in 1980. His last name was Arnold.

Steve Helmick:
In '60/'61, while we were at Edwards AFB, we went to Barney Snyder's "ModelCraft" shop...but I had no idea where it was, since I wasn't the driver or navigator. The first place we went was Reginald Denny's, but it was closed. Dad knew Reggie from drone work before WW2. We must have gone to the nearest shop from there. I recall R. Denny's being on the corner and it was raining. ModelCraft was a pretty decent LHS to us, compared to the PX, a small counter shared with BSA equipment in a small town department store, or an 80 mile drive to a shop in Spokane.   y1 Steve

paw080:

Hi Floyd, the very first Hobby shop I went to was Colonel Bob's on Pico in West Los Angeles around 1947.
I lived on 30th St near Arlington Ave then. In 1950 we moved to southwest LA and I couldn't stay away
from Barney and Peggy Snyder's Modelcraft shop on Western Ave near 92 St.  Barney helped me so much
I am forever thankful.  In 1956 we moved to Hawthorne and there I went to a hobby shop on Hawthorne blvd
a couple of blks north of the theater. Also I went to Jack O'Blenness's shop in Lawndale and another shop across
 the street from the Alondra park swimming pool(Chuck's ??).

By the way, in the early 1970's my wife and family moved to South Gate and I discovered that Salt Lake park
had a flying field dedicated to controlline flying; but there had not been any modeling activity for years. :(

Tony G

FLOYD CARTER:
Hi Tony.  Salt Lake Park was very active in the '40s and '50s.  Flyers from other parts of Los Angeles liked that site because grass was well kept, and parking was close.  We often had visits by Bob Palmer and JC Yates at the Salt Lake site.  I attended occasionally because we already had a nice flying site in South Gate Park, and later at Lynwood Park.  Our Lynwood site had a paved take-off strip and we were encouraged by the city, in spite of being close to St. Francis hospital.  I often expected complaints from the hospital, but never got any.  I lived in South Gate until late 1952 when I entered USAF active service.

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