Shortage of Machine Shop Parts Thwarts Vet Dreams

Mirror reporter Jerry Edelberg wrote of the plight of the "returning GI, who dreamed of a little machine shop at home while slogging through a Burma jungle." According to him, a horde of vets were pounding the pavement along machine shop row that existed back then on Canal , Lafayette and Centre Streets in frustration looking for those elusive missing motors or lathes they needed to get their businesses up and running. There aren't a heck of a lot of machine shops in Manhattan in 2008 but in 1946 the city was still a center of manufacturing large and small.

Behind this story lies an agenda. It is not the GIs who have brought the situation to the attention of the Mirror but the machine shop dealers . "We've got the kids coming in almost with tears in their eyes, complaining of getting a run-around at War Assets," the reporter quoted "the men in the big shops" saying. What was their beef? Usually small shops bought their parts from middlemen like the dealers but under federal law returning vets had first crack at buying the war surplus machines and parts directly from government warehouses. The dealers would get regular bulletins on what was available but they would have to wait until the items were offered for public sale before they could buy it. You can imagine their frustration seeing the opportunity to buy war surplus at rock bottom prices to resell at a big markup like other businesses were doing at the time. And they were losing customers to Uncle Sam.

The dealers claimed this was not a good deal for the vets who had hard time convincing those damned bureaucrats that they were entitled to the goods, or for them to get timely delivery. And, the dealers claimed, some of these items were built for "special military purposes and only expert mechanics can convert them to civilian use." So this much needed stuff sat in warehouses while thousands of veterans who had taken government loans to set up shops "keep paying rent and overhead while twiddling their thumbs."