Writing their own toy story
While shoppers stormed the barricades to buy
It joins half a dozen other kits manufactured by the home-based Bridge Street Toys, which has resurrected the classic Kenner girder and panel sets.
The company, run by parents Carol and Paul Flack and their children, 13-year-old Ruth and 11-year-old Paul Jr. , was founded as a hobby in 2003. But they turned it into a full-fledged business after realizing just how much demand there was for the plastic building kits, especially among nostalgic baby boomers.
Since Globe West visited the family a year ago, the company has won a trio of awards, and one of its kits was featured on a segment of "The Early Show" on
They have added two full-time assembly line workers; a full-time customer service operator; and part-time accounting, design, and information technology staffers. Once marketed exclusively through the company website, bridgestreettoys.com, the sets are now available at more than 100 retailers in 26 states.
The family hopes 2007 will be the "break-even" year. Carol Flack estimates that they've sold more than 10,000 sets, but admits that she lost count a long time ago.
Kids use plastic girders -- much like the I-beams used in real-life construction -- to make the bones of a building or a bridge. Plastic panels snap onto the outside of the girders to make walls, or in the case of a bridge, a road. Sets can be assembled into skyscrapers, highways, factories, houses, and other buildings to form the makings of a city.
Paul Flack is particularly excited about the Hydrodynamic set, because it was the version Kenner Toys sold in the '60s that inspired him to become an architect. Now Flack has gone full circle after a career that included designing chemical plants.
Bridge Street's Hydrodynamic sets contain the parts to build a model of an industrial structure such as an ice cream factory, oil refinery, or water treatment plant. Besides girders and panels, it comes with pumps, valves, tanks, and pipes that carry water that can be dyed to mimic ingredients in the factory. The set teaches basic principles of fluid dynamics, such as how a siphon works and how water flow can be affected by different valves. The starter set, which retails for $50, contains about 180 pieces.
Carol Flack believes the Hydrodynamic set will appeal to girls as well as boys. She recalls that as a child her toy world was pretty much limited to dolls. Already she says she's received calls from moms who want to buy sets for their daughters.
"I'm just glowing about it," said Flack, who was a chemical engineering executive. "I'm hoping . . . we'll have all these girls wanting to grow up to be engineers."
The company's honors include the prestigious Parents' Choice Foundation award for its Tekton Tower Set . Foundation president Claire Green said the organization honors fewer than 20 percent of the thousands of toys, books, games, and software programs that are submitted for consideration. Each product goes through field testing by kids and must pass muster with a panel of parents and educators. Green said the Tekton Tower won high marks for its emphasis on creativity and problem solving.
"It really does resemble a contemporary structure that kids might see in a city. It allows them the opportunity to take the real world concepts of engineering and of design and make them work with this toy," Green said from the group's Maryland office. "It encourages the child to ask 'What if?' over and over again -- 'What if I put this here, what if I put this there?' "
The Flacks plan to introduce a new set every three months. Ideas include a baseball stadium and brick row houses like those found in Boston's South End.
They've turned their home -- except the bedrooms -- over to testing, design, and assembly for the business. This caused a few problems when the family hosted Thanksgiving dinner for friends and relatives. The dining room usually serves as a workshop for making the flags and signs that are sold with the kits. That meant moving out the laminating machines and thousands of tiny flagpoles and girders (some of which were hidden under a couch or behind a curtain).
"It took me a whole day to clean out the dining room, and the dining room was perfect. We got out all the silver, and it was beautiful for about six hours," said Carol Flack of the temporary respite from home manufacturing. "And then Friday morning we were shipping product again."
Stephanie V. Siek can be reached via e-mail at ssiek@globe.com. 
