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Mobilman44 -- You probably remember Stanton's Hobby Shop on Milwaukee Avenue and Benty's Hobby Shop on Belmont downstairs from the "L" station. Stanton's was the larger of the two. Mr. Benty tried his best to survive over the years. Stanton's was far more successful, a larger store with a great variety of merchandise.I also used to go to Simonsen's Hobby Shop on Lincoln Avenue south of Belmont. One time I was looking for a Lionel crane car. "I think I have one in the basement. I might need your help to get it down from the shelf," Mr Simonsen said.To my surprise, he had a large inventory of prewar and postwar Lionel trains in their original boxes. It took him a few minutes to find the crane car, but he did. "It's up there," he pointed. "Would you mind climbing the ladder to get it?" I didn't mind at all.Mr. Simonsen employed a former Chicago policeman as a repairman. I don't know if they were related. In the late 1970s, a friend of mine gave me a three-rail American Flyer freight set from the late 1930's she bought at a garage sale. The cars were in good condition, but the engine didn't work. I took it to Simonsen's. The repairman said he could fix it and asked me to come back in a week or so.When I did, he asked, "How does it look?" He pointed to their three-loop, figure-eight display layout in the front window. I didn't notice it when I walked by. The engine was pulling a few cars as it raced around the window display layout with no trouble at all."It looks great!" I said."It just needed some new brushes," he said. "I cleaned the motor while I had it apart. Now, it runs like a raped rabbit!" I think he charged me only eight dollars to fix it. I visited New York City on business quite often between 1976 and 1986, when I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Every time I was in New York, I made time to visit Madison Hardware and Supply on 23rd Street. I bought a number of Lionel products from them by mail over the years, but nothing prepared me for my first visit there.The store was of normal width, maybe 25 feet, but quite deep. They had five or six floors of merchandise above, but customers were only allowed on the first floor. The salesman tended to be older and included two or three brothers whom I think were sons of the original owner. No matter what you wanted, Madison Hardware had it in stock. They had Lionel parts galore! I believe Madison Hardware was Lionel Trains' first dealer back in the first decade of the 20th Century. Sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, Lionel Trains acquired Madison Hardware and Supply and moved their enormous inventory to Michigan.
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