Quoted from TimMe:What an amazing letter! It's so great to see how Gottlieb (and Mr. Neyens in particular) supported their operators.
Yes, that was the year they moved to the beautiful new factory they built in Northlake. So this letter would have been written shortly before that move.
I grew up about a mile from the Kostner Ave factory in Chicago in the 1960s. Although it was primarily a residential area, our neighborhood was mixed-use, with small factories, commercial buildings, and houses interleaved. My family phone number growing up was also an AL-2 (ALBANY exchange) number, which was how I was taught it. It morphed into a 252 number in the 70s, when the idea of belonging to a named phone exchange became obsolete. A very different era, in so many ways.
- TimMe
Wow Tim, had not heard you lived near the Gottlieb factory. The first phone number I remember memorizing was Hickory-#### in Cincinnati. I just spoke to Wayne and read this letter to him. He thinks this was done in letter form so the schematic could be included. His signature in red ink is probably because he had used the same pen to circle the areas of the schematic he was referring to. He said most of the time he would answer troubleshooting or other game questions over the phone. I sent the Pinside link to his daughters so they can print it out and take to him to see. He wrote down the initials of the typist to see if he can eventually recall the name, but said there were quite a few office staff at the time so may not be able to identify "rc".
Always good to see you at the Funwithpinball Clinics.
Will
