Chicago in Toy History: Another Voice

Last week’s blog posting on Chicago being the center of the toy universe certainly caused some interesting dialogue. It started when I reported on a speech given by Mary Couzin to the Chicago chapter of Women In Toys. 

Well, it seems that Mary Couzin was not the only person to speak that night. Another speaker was Pauline Camberis who was Marvin Glass’s personal assistant from the time he started in the toy business to the day he died. She then went on to work for Meyer/Glass until it closed. She is therefore an important participant in and a witness to toy industry history. 

Kim Vandenbroucke who owns The Brainy Chick, Inc., a Chicago based inventor and game developing company, sent me a copy of the speech given by Pauline Camberis to the Women In Toy Chicago Chapter meeting.  

Because what Pauline has to say is extremely important for future and current historians, I am posting her entire speech in todays blog as a means of preserving it. Enjoy!

Many of you that are here tonight have known me for many, many years and may have heard this story before, but for those who have not here goes. 

I began my toy world life with Marvin Glass in September of 1963 in the offices of the Alexandria Hotel located on Ohio and Rush Streets to be exact 57 E. Ohio in the heart of the Magnificent Mile, however it was not at that time. 

Marvin leased half of the 1^st floor of the Alexandria Hotel where he set up shop with a model shop and about 12 employees consisting of designers, engineers and model makers. Burt Meyer, Gordon Barlow, and Harry Disko are a few of the designers who were with Marvin from the inception of Marvin Glass & Associates and these names you are familiar with and were responsible for many of the toys that are still hits today. 

The Alexandria Hotel was the home of toys and games, such as Mr. Machine, Mousetrap, Crazy Clock, Operation, Toss Across, Lite Brite, Kissy Doll, Robot Commando, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots and many more much too many to mention here tonight. When I started Marvin had just finished renovating an old coach house in Evanston, but was still living in an apartment in the hotel at the far end of the office and shop. He eventually moved to Evanston after the completion of the coach house. His first wife made the comment, “Marvin you think you’re Jesus Christ and now you’re going to live in a stable.” His chauffeur Oliver and later on Flynn Barr was on call picking up clients from the airport and bringing them to the office for a presentation. 

Our most important clients at that time were Ideal Toy, Hasbro, Hubley Manufacturing and Louis Marx. Lionel Weintraub and Anson Isaacson, of Ideal Toy, Merrill Hassenfeld, of Hasbro and Mel Taft, of Milton Bradley visited the office frequently seeking new ideas to manufacture and many they did find. 

At that time there were no other companies that just designed and invented new concepts for toy companies; Marvin Glass & Associates was the first. It was Marvin’s idea to start up a company to just develop toys and games for toy companies. Marvin invented the business of inventing toys. 

In 1965 the Alexandria Hotel was sold and Marvin purchased a building on North LaSalle Street and had it completely renovated. Marvin hired new people that eventually became his new partners since he now had more room and wanted to grow. M/GA was fast becoming the foremost toy invention studio in the world. Toy company liaisons from around the world came to M/GA for presentations of his new concepts. 

Many items were sold and many former employees today in the business of toy design emanated from Marvin Glass & Associates and are fruitfully enjoying the seed that was planted many years ago by a man named Marvin Glass. 815 N. LaSalle became the new home of Marvin Glass & Associates until 1988 when the M/GA partnership dissolved and the 815 N. LaSalle building was sold.

Marvin was my very best friend and I lost him in January of 1974 after a short illness, each and every day that I was with him I learned something new, he was a genius, he was an voracious reader, he read everything he could get his hands on from a Screw Magazine to Tolstoy the German philosopher, he was difficult to work for as all will attest to, but I loved him.

Marvin was also a very generous; he wanted all his employees to share in his wealth. When the government first initiated that companies could set up Employee Profit Sharing Plans he was one of the first to do so for his employees. He wanted everyone to own their home and live very comfortably and he helped them in every way he could. All his employees were more than amply compensated for their efforts and I was proud to be part of his team. 

I continued on working for Marvin Glass & Associates after he died with the new partners until the dissolution of the Marvin Glass & Associates partnership in 1988. In 1989 Burt Meyer one of the original partners of Marvin Glass & Associates started up Meyer/Glass Design with Steve Meyer heading up the company with many talented designers, model makers and engineers. Steve ran the company in the tradition of the original Marvin Glass & Associates.

Again many new ideas were presented and manufactured and some of them are still in the marketplace today as well.

In April of 2006 we closed our doors at 1714 N. Damen Avenue due to the many changes in the toy business. It has been a long and wonderful ride for me knowing and working with many, many talented people over the years that I was in the world of toys and I can truly say I have been blessed to have known and worked with each and everyone of them and especially those who are no longer with us. Thank you.