In the days before the ubiquitous shopping mall with its generic range of stores, any major city could be counted on to offer a dazzling range of toy and hobby shops. Likely one of the most dazzling was the multi-story hobby palace Polk’s Hobbies on 5th Avenue in New York City about a block south of the Empire State Building. Each floor was devoted to a particular hobby with one floor set aside for model soldiers. You could set your sights on plastic models or toy trains or working models. Of course, they had a wonderful collection of miniatures though mostly for those sort of people who enjoyed putting them under glass jars on curio shelves. Even so, this is where I went to purchase copies of the Wargaming Newsletter and The Dragon.

A trip to Polk’s was always an experience. The store clerks were generally rude or at best indifferent but at first it hardly seemed to matter. During the 60s, a weekend would see floors crowded with hobbyists in search of that elusive bit of detail. By the 70s though interest dwindled. 45th Street had multiple model railroad shops while 33rd and 57th boasted The Complete Strategist. Even the soldier-in-a-jar crowd could go to the plush Soldier Shop. Eventually, the upper floors were sold off and Polk’s was reduced to crowded quarters in the basement. In 2013, Polk’s finally closed its doors. While it was there, it was worth seeing.

Polk’s offered different catalogs for different hobbies. The figures catalog shown offers display figures and a handful of very early wargames. Below, an attempt to explain figure scale.