I ENJOYED THE ARTICLE “Pinball,” by Linda Barth, in your Spring 2004 issue. It mentioned that in 1942 “a delighted [Mayor Fiorello] La Guardia posed for photographs while smashing the machines with sledgehammers and watching their remains get dumped into the East River.” Fortunately, not all the remains ended up in the river. Some of the smashed machines were given to New York’s science high schools for parts. I was a student at Stuyvesant High School at the time, and we welcomed the donation. Needless to say, we managed to rebuild at least one machine, albeit without its colorful glass scoring displays. I took home a stepping (score-counting) relay that was left over and made a telephone exchange in my bedroom that tied together six friends who lived on my block in Woodside.
Monroe Postman
LOS ALTOS, CALIF.
