nothin Hull’s Hobbies To Close | New Haven Independent

Hull’s Hobbies To Close

Allan Appel Photo

Nearly 50 years after a young model train repair apprentice went out on his own, Bill Cramer is packing in his iconic Chapel Street hobby and hardware store. It was just time.

The cause was neither his landlord nor the faltering economy. His wife Marilyn, with whom he bought Hull’s in 1962, died a year ago. His grown daughters urged him to look at the longer picture.

He did.

He decided if he were younger than his youthful 77, and if the economy had been headed in a different direction, he just might weather another year or two of flat sales. But since January things have been tough.

We’re at the bottom of the totem pole. When there isn’t money, buying a [model] train is the last thing people will do. A couple of days I sat here and read a book,” Cramer said.

So the decision was made, and with no regrets. The Lionel trains and tracks, balsa wood, model paint and brushes are all on sale. He expects to leave by the end of May. What he can’t sell in the store, he’ll sell on eBay, Cramer said.

The history of Cramer and his store began long before eBay, Internet sales, and Ikea. It’s also in many ways the history of New Haven.

After two years in the army in Korea, Annex native Cramer took a job at the A.C. Gilbert Toy Company, makers of the fabled Erector sets, at Blatchley and Peck. He was apprenticed to the model train repairers and loved it.

But he always also wanted to be a cop. He joined the force in 1956, serving until 1984 on a downtown beat and in the quality control section, which reviewed the paperwork cops prepared.

Meanwhile, his wife Marilyn learned that the hobby store Harry Hull had established on Chapel Street in 1947 was for sale.

The Cramers and Marilyn’s brother Art DiAdamo bought it. DiAdamo ran the store. Marilyn kept the books, and waited on customers. When Cramer finished his seven to three shift, he came to the store and worked on the train repairs.

Eventually, they had a small empire on Chapel that consisted of contiguous stores, one for architectural supplies, one for hobby and hardware, and a frame shop run by older daughter Kimberly.

When the hobby business declined somewhat in the 1970s, they emphasized architectural supplies. Students from Yale’s architecture and drama school were stalwart customers, as were actors performing at the theaters. Cramer remembers Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, and Weird Al Yankovich among many customers.

Maya Lin, who would go on to fame as the sculptor of the Washington D.C. Vietnam Memorial, bought bass wood from Cramer for her models. It’s harder than balsa,” he said.

Cramer’s daughter remembered days in the 1980s when, with so many young students crowded into the store to buy school supplies, there was no room to stand.

Then Ikea moved to town; a small store like Hulls could not compete in prices.

Service was another matter. Cramer said he recalled when 27 customers who had bought an item at Ikea, all came to him for repairs. Two screws were missing,” he said.

(In 2000, the architecture supply store alone, along with the Hull name, was sold. It has been doing business, separate from the Cramers farther east on Chapel)

Of her dad’s style and work ethic, Kimberly Curbow said he packed a remarkable one-two punch.:“He’s a perfectionist. And he doesn’t worry.”

Cramer was asked what he’ll miss the most.

He responded with a litany of memories: He raised his kids here; even the landlord’s son, along with Kimberly, stood on their tiptoes to pick out their favorite Matchbox cars. At the front of the store, by the cash register and key-fabricating machine, where she knitted, Cramer’s wife was a fixture. When she died, one regular on hearing the news from Cramer, was so grief-stricken, she left without saying a word, and couldn’t return for three months.

Cramer credited the Chapel West Special Services District with great improvements. He’s promised his friends of many decades at Geraldine Florists and optician Bob Richards of Carofano of New Haven, and the other nearby small businesses he’ll be around.

He’s a wonderful man to have as a friend,” said Richards.

Cramer described his fellow small business colleagues in Chapel West as a close-knit family He especially intends to hang out with them at next year’s the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. As long as you stand under the awning, the cops will let you have a Guinness, he said; he ought to know.

Cramer might not have the time to hang around too much. His daughters are planning a family trip to the ancestral home in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. Before, or after, Kimberly is going to get him to help her do some painting. And younger daughter Kristen has just moved onto a farm, where the barn requires some sure-handed attention.

There will barely be time for Bill Cramer to finish building the Yamato, a 42-inch model of the largest Japanese battleship, or to put the finishing touches on a radio-controlled German tank. Both are in his basement, and have awaited his attention for years.

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