JOEL SPIVAK: I was having dinner one night with a couple I had recently met. We had a lot in common and talked about SciFi and other space related stuff.

The guy told me about his career as an artist for Marvel comics. I asked him how he got to be a comic book artist.

He told me that when he was a kid he went to a store that was like being in a science fiction dream. He bought a spaceship and went home and started drawing pictures on scrap pieces of paper. I knew what store he meant. It was my store.

But to start at the very beginning...

I came to South St in the late 60s to help a friend build a store called The Works. I thought I'd be there a couple of months but somehow 50 years slide by.

Most of the neighborhood was abandoned because the city was going to demolish everything to create the crosstown expressway to connect the Schuylkill Expressway to the Delaware Expressway (I-95).

Some older businesses still exitsted and some of the vacant buildings were occupied by artists. The rents were really cheap as the building owners waited for the city to buy their building to make way for the highway.

All the communities along the corridor from river to river decided to join forces and fight the highway. Well, they were successful and all the vacant stores began to get rented and created a unique and wonderful community.

I designed and built almost everything - The Black Banana, Lickety Split, Judy's Cafe, Essene, Eyes Gallery, The Crooked Mirror, Copa Banana, Cafe Nola, The Last Dress Shop Before the River to name a few of the 100s of places I created in my shop/studio at 623-625 South 4th Street, an abandoned building with no electric, water or heat, which I bought for $4,500 in 1972.

I was sitting in my shop one day and decided to build a store for myself.

I'd sell spaceships and ray guns. I never heard of such a place but I had a lot of knowledge because I collected ray guns for years and had watched every Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials throughout my childhood.

Star Wars had released "Empire Strikes Back" and a new Flash Gordon movie had come out that Christmas. Because of the success of these movies, more toy companies created "space" products for consumers.

Along with that and all the antique stuff there was plenty of products to sell - there was a japanese wholesaler in Brooklyn that sold these amazing changeable metal robots that were from animated TV shows in Japan. These became the Go-Bots & Transformers.

The uniqueness of the store brought more adults than kids. So the store gave a new meaning to "an adult toy store."

People would come and hang out, playing with the toys and making new friends. There were the Star Wars fans, the Trekkies, artists and Sci-Fi writers, inspiring each other and lots of kids who made their parents bring them there for their birthdays. The place became the "Reward Store" for kids that excelled in their school work.

It was an advertising paradise to create slogans and special events:

"We specialize in Ray Guns, New & Used."

"Best Selection in the Universe."

"While you're on this planet, visit Rocketships & Accessories."

Every May we celebrated Star Wars' birthday on the release date with a cake shaped like R2D2 and a costume competition. We had a special 30th anniversary for Godzilla, with a screening of the movie and an actor in the Godzilla costume. It was an amazing feeling to see how the store with its unique merchandise inspired people to be so creative.

I had a display area in the store where the artwork brought in by the kids of all ages got displayed. Plenty of space ships made from toilet paper rolls and other objects.

Over the years I would meet people who recognized me and they would say "when I was a kid I went to your store and became an artist - or a Sci-Fi writer - or opened a comic book shop" always inspired by their visit to the store.

A few years back there was an article about Rocketships & Accessories in Hidden City Philadelphia. One of the replies was from someone who hung out there and had made many friends. His quote was how nice it was to meet people like him and it was nice to know others with the same interest. He said the store was "Geek Headquarters."

R E A D I N G
E X H I B I T

Reading Public Museum

The Reading Public Museum, in Reading, Pennsylvania, always had a toy exhibit every Christmas. Collectors and toy dealers from around the area would lend their treasures of 19th and early 20th century antique toys. With the release of the second Star Wars movie, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and the success of the new Flash Gordon and other sci-fi films, the museum thought their 1982 exhibit should have something to do with science fiction.

The curator, Jeff Gore, knew that I had a collection of antique toy rayguns and rocketships, and called to see what was available. Would there be enough for the high quality exhibit the museum was looking for? I told him there had never been any exhibits of “science fiction toys”, which was the term that toy collectors and dealers used at the time. There had been an amazing exhibit of toy robots in England a year earlier that featured items from European collectors. Most toys were made in Japan and by other world manufacturers.

To prepare for the exhibit I visited the museum to see the space. I was expecting a small room but there were three large rooms. The Christmas exhibit was the major event of the year in that area of Pennsylvania.

I called a few collectors to see what was available and to see if they would lend their collections. Dennis Wack, the master collector of “Tom Corbett” Sci-Fi TV show from the 1950’s, was honored to have his collection on display. Other collectors were just as enthused. The exhibit opened December 1982 to a packed museum. The vast exhibit showed that there were such things as antique rocketships and rayguns.

It was just the beginning of the Travelling Raygun Museum and the Space Toy Information Center, which provided material to the Library of Congress for their exhibit “Children‘s Choices in the 1930’s”, and to the Smithsonian Institute for the travelling exhibit entitled “Yesterday’s Tomorrows.”