Hank Lee will be closing his retail magic store in Boston after more than 30 years in various locations around the city.
hankleesmagicfactory.blogspot.com/
I can still remember my first visit to his store back when I was in high school. You had to climb two flights of narrow old stairs past an old manual operated elevator that rarely if ever had an operator.
On arriving you found a cramped dusty space crammed full of every magic trick you could imagine. For someone who knew only the joke/magic shops in Boston this was a revelation. That a shop could be dedicated to magic only.
For that teenage nerd it was pure heaven.
Greater still was the discovery that one never knew who you would meet there. On my very first visit Phil Goldstein (max Maven) was there helping Hank lay out his first catalog.
At any moment local magicians might wander in and give you a bit of advice on what to buy or how to better use some trick or device.
Over the years - even as I traveled far from home - I came to appreciate that this is what a magic shop should be. Even when I found occasional employment demoing tricks at other shops far from home there was something lacking. While Hank was certainly all business there was never a rush to get out the door, no pressure to buy just because it was the new "featured" item.
As his shop moved from place to place I still could go there and spend hours deciding what perfect trick I needed this time.
Hank was also the first to join computers with the magic biz. He had a clunky bulletin board based around a TRS 80 that was next to impossible to log on to. This eventually evolved to his web based business.
So it is with sadness that this wonderful internet has claimed yet another victim - the neighborhood magic shop.
True Hank is opening the warehouse to retail trade but somehow it just won't be the same.
Thanks Hank for all the years of magic.
hankleesmagicfactory.blogspot.com/
I can still remember my first visit to his store back when I was in high school. You had to climb two flights of narrow old stairs past an old manual operated elevator that rarely if ever had an operator.
On arriving you found a cramped dusty space crammed full of every magic trick you could imagine. For someone who knew only the joke/magic shops in Boston this was a revelation. That a shop could be dedicated to magic only.
For that teenage nerd it was pure heaven.
Greater still was the discovery that one never knew who you would meet there. On my very first visit Phil Goldstein (max Maven) was there helping Hank lay out his first catalog.
At any moment local magicians might wander in and give you a bit of advice on what to buy or how to better use some trick or device.
Over the years - even as I traveled far from home - I came to appreciate that this is what a magic shop should be. Even when I found occasional employment demoing tricks at other shops far from home there was something lacking. While Hank was certainly all business there was never a rush to get out the door, no pressure to buy just because it was the new "featured" item.
As his shop moved from place to place I still could go there and spend hours deciding what perfect trick I needed this time.
Hank was also the first to join computers with the magic biz. He had a clunky bulletin board based around a TRS 80 that was next to impossible to log on to. This eventually evolved to his web based business.
So it is with sadness that this wonderful internet has claimed yet another victim - the neighborhood magic shop.
True Hank is opening the warehouse to retail trade but somehow it just won't be the same.
Thanks Hank for all the years of magic.
posted by:
|
Massachusetts
|
