Automatic Age

April, 1932 A uto m atic A ge c mes and showed me this that and the °ther thing. I ’m getting to know more every day o f arcades and I always wonder y men in other cities through which I iavel aren’t as enterprising as these gentleIJ1611 and also attempt to place m odem up to ( ae Meades. T hey’re great fo r the people. Just think o f all these machines in a efinite location some o f them there for orty years and still at work. That’s what Ca-U a real return on an investment, ere’s hard times in some industries but w erever a good arcade locates you’ll usually find very little vacancies on that °ck. Mr. Schork pointed that out to me and I not only found it true but very in|gumg. i wonder if you can tell me just y a good arcade, with real attraction, Can So easily fill up a business block? Mechanical Genius at Age of 12 It isn’t exciting to hear o f an experi­ enced repair man in some jobber’s repair depart: J ment adjust orVL-Heven ----- fix ---- C IVJ.J U o l---- xremake caiiicvxv---- C ,ear a machine to pieces. But it certaiinly s news when a young boy o f 12 can outskill some o f the most skilled mechanics in Brooklyn. It seems that one o f the oper­ ators f o u n d he had a plunger on a m a c h i n e that just couldn’t be repaired no mat­ te r w hat you did with it. He brought it back to his j o b b e r , Irving Bromberg Co., a n d M r . Bromberg set re­ Marty Bromberg pairmen to work on the plunger, These all men ave had varied experience with timS° ltS affled C°*n sots anc* Plun£ers- But this what they might they were izati Wo'u the Irving Bromberg organ}y S0|P there fo r a customer? Certain­ ly ° * They therefore let every man that e along try his hand at fixing the © International Arcade Museum 25 plunger. Man after man failed. Irving tells me that he was ready to chuck the thing into the waste basket and was trying to tell this unlucky operator that he should invest in a brand new plunger. Just then, as usually happens in these cases, our hero arrived at the crucial mo­ ment. He appeared in the person o f little Marty Bromberg, 12 year old son o f Irv ­ ing Bromberg. Kids may like to tinker around with tools, but with M arty it seems to come natural. He took the ,plunger which was ready fo r the waste basket (perhaps there m ay be a wee bit o f Scotch in the b oy) and re­ moving his presence to the back room, he got hold o.f one o f Dad’s pliers, plus the use of a vise, and in threQ shake o f a lamb’s tail returned with the iplunger working like new. To this day operators gaze with awe at this phenomenon and wonder if Edison, or Steinmetz, or Coolidge may have endowed the boy with spiritual g ifts so that he can surprise an entire city with the ease and simplicity it takes to repair even a rotten plunger. Whatever it is, Marty Bromberg, age 12, complexion fa ir, eyes blue, height, 5' 4", weight about 125 lbs., is the budding geni­ us in the Bromberg organization. Even Mrs. Bromberg gazes at him with respect and possibly dreams that her boy also may be one o f the outstanding engineers o f this coming generation. Whether yes or no, Marty ranks now with the best vending machine repair men in the city o f Brook­ lyn, and as Mr. Bromberg would say, “ bar none.” Sell those used machines with a want ad in A u tom a tic Age / s . S C O R E C A R D S Add the final touch to your loca­ tions. They advertise the prizes you offer in a neat, colorful way and give a business-like appear­ ance to your machines. Colored cardboard, suitable fo r any ma­ chine. 34 names. 10 Samples 25c; 50 80c; 100 $1.50, postpaid. 25c added on C .O .D . orders. J. A. D IX O N 103 Ryan St. Hillside, N. J. http://www.arcade-museum.com/