I’ve seen the truck on numerous occasions. A white panel truck motoring around the Capital District, the truck’s side panels advertising a store from an era long, long ago. I didn’t know who owned the truck. I didn’t even know why the truck was still on the roads, or why the logo of a clown pounding a drum, a festive rendition of I Pagliacci, was still emblazoned on the truck’s panels.
But every time I saw that truck, I wanted to get a photo of it. But the Fates all conspired to thwart my goal – my camera wasn’t in the car, or I was driving one way and the truck was passing me, or by the time I grabbed my camera to photograph the truck, it was gone.
Was it a mirage? Was it a ghost? Was it the Capital District’s version of the Flying Dutchman?
Then someone clued me in to its location.
“Go to the church of St. Sophia,” I was told. “You will see it there.”
On Saturday morning, I put the Nikon D700 in the car. Let’s Go, Cardachrome – next stop, the Church of St. Sophia on Whitehall Road in Albany.
I looked around the parking lot. The vehicle wasn’t there. Maybe that comment, too, was a red herring.
And then – behind the house of worship –
There it was. Oh my Lord in holy heaven.
A white 1993 Chevrolet box truck. Bright as day. Duane’s Toyland.
Oh, the memories.
If you grew up in the Capital District, a trip to Duane’s Toyland was like a trip to paradise. Duane’s Toyland began in 1953 when Leon Hatkoff converted an old firehouse in Niskayuna into a discount toy store, and in the process he created the first discount toy retailer in the country.
I recall Duane’s Toyland in at least two locations – one on 3901 State Street, at the top of the hill between Mohawk Mall and the Lisha Kill area, I believe that location is now used by an indoor flea market. As kids, we would walk over from Fine’s Mobile Home and Trailer Park to Duane’s on our way to Mohawk Mall; we would buy toys and games and books and action figures in the store’s two shopping levels.
The other location for Duane’s was in the Westgate Shopping Center, in an area where I believe a fitness center is now located. If you got past the apparent petrochemical smell upon entering the Westgate Duane’s location, you could see rows of board games and action figures from floor to ceiling. It was as if Santa Claus had a factory outlet on Central Avenue.
There was a third Duane’s Toyland, I believe it was in Amsterdam at the Alpin Haus Plaza, and it operated in the early 1990’s. But that unit closed in 1994. At the time of the Amsterdam store’s closing, the hot-ticket “must have” Christmas item were the Power Rangers, and manufacturers were more likely to ship the toys to the big chain outlets like K-Mart and Wal-Mart than they were to a regional chain like Duane’s. Parents went to the big discount retailers for those hard-to-find holiday toys, and Duane’s wasn’t able to keep up with the demand.
Duane’s tried to change with the times – during the early 1990’s, Duane’s opened The Computer Cellar, an electronics and hobby outlet in its Westgate Plaza location; the Commodore Users Group held regular meetings in that locale. That’s right, kids, at one time in our nation’s history, people lusted after a home computer with a whopping 64 kilobytes of memory.
In March 1995, Duane’s restructured their business operations; but after the Christmas 1995 sales season, Duane’s finally ceased operations. The Westgate Plaza store was the last to close, in January 1996.
Fifteen years later, the only visible reminder of Duane’s Toyland and the joy it brought to millions of Capital District kids is a small, rusty box truck in the parking lot of the Church of St. Sophia.
A truck loaded with generations of wonderful memories; a truck still able to deliver a smile and an “I remember that store!” to Capital District motorists who happen to catch a fleeting glimpse of it.
Chuck The Writer 
I spotted that truck, too, from the Thruway many times, unable to believe what I was seeing, and finally tracked it down on my bike. It’s in surprisingly good condition. One of the most notable things about Duane’s Toyland (other than that it was JUST a toy store, at a time when toy departments were very much a seasonal thing in the big department stores) was that they advertised their location by the trolley stop number, many many years after the trolleys had stopped stopping. Was it Stop 7? I can’t quite remember, but it was the only place that still did that in the ’60s and ’70s.
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Carl – This ad from the 1959 Gazette lists Duane’s as being at Stop 3 on Albany-Schenectady Road, which I think is the same as Route 5 (State Street, Central Avenue) today.
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Oh, Duane’s…. still to this day when I drive by the State Street building, I recall happy memories from the 70’s when my mom would take us there if my sister and I were good girls for a toy. It was heaven to an under 10 year old girl.
And she would take us there with a piece of paper and pencil before Christmas and we would get to write out our christmas list…Duane’s and the Sears catalog.
Sweet sweet memories, thank you Chuck!
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Thanks for the memories! On a tight,tight budget we were able to visit Duane’s often because there was always something on sale or just right for that little gift. We frequented the store in Schenectady and yes,still see the toy store when we pass by even though it has been gone many years. A fave memory is from a trip to the store in Westgate and two women were chatting with a salesperson as she was wrapping many small items for a child’s dollhouse. The one woman was petite and had blonde hair with a velvet hairband. I looked again and realized that it was MaryLou Whitney. We were buying an $8.00 game while she was spending several hundred dollars on dollhouse furniture and decor. You just never knew who you would run into at Duane’s!
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My brother and I LOVED going to Duane’s Toyland in Westgate.
We used to spend so much time in there just looking around and not even buying anything.
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Very fond memories of Duane’s Toyland. I remember picking out my first Cabbage Patch (the others before were gifts) and the feeling I had that we traveled soooo far (from East Greenbush) to “adopt” this special doll at this dreamland.
Even the times we visited and I didn’t get anything was more than worth it.
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My father would take my brothers there every Saturday to pick out a toy. It was our time together. I still remember how the basement smelled, and walking down those creepy stairs to get there. I would wander the barbie aisle for hours and hours (well, probably 45 minutes, but hey, at 8 that is forever) trying to decide if I wanted Italian Barbie or maybe a whole slew of new clothes. My brothers would ponder their model airplane purchases and whether or not they could get Dad to buy a little more paint.
I believe there was another Duane’s Toyland down Central Avenue, it had a sign built into the shingles on the roof?
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On my birthday as a young boy my mom would take me there on my birthdays hand me 20 dollars and I could buy what ever I wanted.I would take what seemed like hrs adding and subtracting to get everything I wanted for the 20.
Great momeries.
Tony
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The westgate location is now a gym that I attend. If you can remember, there was a really nice wide staircase from the first to second floor. Interestingly, the gym preserved the staircase in its original form. One day when I was walking up the stairs I had the weirdest feeling of somthing of years gone by. I then realized I was walking up the original duanes staircase. I get a good feeling every time I use those stairs.
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Yeah, I miss Duane’s too. The shop in Schenectady was unbelievable. They had EVERY GI JOE! Carried every Hardy Boys book, and the roof with its name on top you could see driving over from Albany. I scored a load of stuff from the Westgate shop before it closed and later got quite a bit for them off eBay years later. For me, it was like Duane’s was giving back for all those years of patronage.
Ah youth, where have you gone?
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