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To place an ad for your game or to find a game, email store@aerohobbiesgames.com
Aero has over thirty feet of table for playing games. There is generally no charge but you may wish to call for availability, especially on weekends. Please check the calendar on our home page.
Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are the most commonly played games in the shop.
Yes, that is a jar of honey.
Miniatures Painting Service
by DAVE TIMMS Armies, units, individual figures, showpieces et cetera. Call 818-468-2117 Santa Monica based (despite phone #)
The Incomplete History of Aero Hobbies:
ca. 1939 from "Recollections of the Aero Theatre By Two Men Who Tore Tickets When The Aero Was Brand New" c. American Cinematique - owners of the Aero Theatre at 14th and Montana
When asked about the story that Douglas Aircraft built the Aero Theatre to entertain employees of the plant during 24-hour wartime production, Donald debunks the myth he has heard before. "In 1939 we weren’t in the war yet, " he says assuredly. Douglas was building bombers for the British. A friend of mine worked there and I asked him if they were on 24 hour shifts then and he said he does not remember being on that schedule." Donald surmises that the theatre was simply built as a real estate investment. The employees of Douglas did not live in that neighborhood so it doesn’t make sense to have built the theatre just for them.
Montana Avenue had proximity to the street car system in those days via the Venice short line which could get you all the way to the coliseum for a game.
One of the retail spaces in the Aero building was Aero Hobbies and other local businesses included a Van de Camps Bakery (at 14th and Montana), a Shell gas station on the northwest corner and a pharmacy frequented by Leo Carrillo. At 2nd and Wilshire was Harold Lloyd’s bowling alley, Loadamar.
1946 from "Autobiography of BRYANT THOMPSON"
I first started working at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, California, while attending high school in 1946 to 1947. Then I joined the Air Force. I worked part-time in a hobby shop in Biloxi, Mississippi, while stationed at Kessler Field.
1974
Aero is purchased by Gary R. Switzer. Also, in darkest Wisconsin Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax published a game they called "Dungeons & Dragons."
Breaking News: Aero Hobbies birthplace of D&D Thief Class
Thanks to Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World, who came across a copy of The Thief Addition expansion booklet to the original Dungeons and Dragons game. From the introduction:
A NEW CHARACTER TYPE FOR DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: THE THIEF!
by Gary Gygax
Recently I received a phone call from Gary Schweitzer who hales from sunny California....during the course of the conversation he mentioned that his group was developing a new class of character -- thieves. Gary gave me a few details of how they were considering this character type, and from these I have constructed tentative rules for the class....
Visit Jon's blog for more, including pics of the original!