Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion tell us that to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. Another way of expressing that thought is that for everything gained, something is lost.
American Eagles Hobbies and North End Train Center, both housed in the same building at 125th and Lake City Way in Lake City are closing down on April 9, 2011. There is no doubt that what we have here is a major loss of two great hobby stores with long, successful histories in Seattle.
But these closings signal a generational shift away from model kit making and building model trains and train dioramas. The shift is not necessarily lamentable unless, like me, you grew up in the world of tactile hobbies. Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, nothing was more fun than building a Revell or Monogram model of a PT boat or a Tom Daniels-designed hot rod like the Red Baron or the Paddy Wagon.
I enjoyed the quiet, time consuming task of gluing the tiny pieces together and painting the various sections with Testors paints, in some cases removing paint bristles on several brushes for finely detailed work.
In fact, when I was in there last week, I didn’t know that American Eagles was closing. I was there to get some liquid cement because one of my beloved creations, a wonderful model of a World War II-era Japanese submarine, had fallen from a shelf and needed some repair.
Returning to the store today to take some photos of the store and talk to the owner, I saw many customers crowding the aisles who were my age and older; there was certainly no one younger.
By the time I had reached my teens in the late 1970s, video games had started their first, halting appearance on the market. As video gaming improved and gained popularity, it pulled the young boys and teens–model kits and model trains were largely boy centric activities–away from the hobby stores into the gaming stores, which share the virtually same demographic. For something gained, something is lost.
Now, we have a generation of young boys who are into video games and game mythology, and while we can selfishly regret it, we must acknowledge that it is the way of the world and video gaming makes people happy and excited and interested, the same way modeling did for us two generations ago. Now, kids want faster action, quicker results. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important to record that the closing of stores like American Eagles marks a change from how boys passed the time in the past with how they are doing it today.
The danger, if there really is one, is that we seem to have lost to a large extent the virtues of patience, focus, creativity, and dedication to a single task. Putting a Revell model kit together takes days (the kits used to give you an estimate on how long it would take, which frustrated the hell out of me as the suggested time passed farther into the distance). And while you are building a kit, you are creating something: you can change the colors, make your own mark.
American Eagles’ owner George Edwards isn’t nostalgic or angry at the loss of his business. His family has owned the store since 1969, the heyday of model making, and he has worked it full time for many years, even as it moved from four locations in Ballard to several in Greenwood to its move to Lake City in 1996.
“We closing part from the realities of the economy, part from my desire to keep the store going and, yes, part from a decline of new, younger customers,” said Edwards. “It’s also true that models have gotten pretty pricey and I think that has hurt as well.”
If you get out to American Eagles before April 9, you are going to see a great selection of model kits, slot cars, figurines, and paints. A surprise to many casual observers is that the store has a fantastic collection of military books for sale. Hobby stores have always had a great selection of fringe books on war.
These are books created by meticulous researchers over many years and the books are filled with great maps about particular battles from the 14th-century battle at Poitiers, to the Civil War and World War II and right up to Iraq. Where else are you going to find a book about the Battle of the Chinese Farm in the 1973 Yom Kippur War?
Downstairs, North End Train Center is also closing. The store, a virtual soup-to-nuts storehouse for everything you need to build a model train set, has been in business since 1947. Owner Bob Colley says sales have been good, but the rents in the city make it hard to have a livable margin.
Both Colley and Edwards will continue to sell inventory online after the stores close.
Today, both stores were busy with guys like me who channeled their aspirations and time into a hobby and are probably sad that, over the years, they haven’t had the time to get back to it. For us, there is a nice opportunity here to reconnect with carefree days. I picked up a Revell kit of the “TireBird” and am looking forward to bringing it to life.
Mass explains that this is known as a midlatitude cyclone, and while most of its force will be spent out at the coast, we are still under a National Weather Service High Wind Advisory until 2 p.m., with gusts of up to 50 mph expected.
