In December 1928, when Isaac Asimov was 8 years old, his father decided to sell his old candy store and move to a new neighborhood - albeit still a Jewish one - and acquire a larger store.
They had lived on Miller Avenue for three years (1925-1928) and now moved to the corner of Essex Street and New Lots Avenue. (651 Essex Street). The store was larger and the clientele better off. The store had a slot machine, too.
When the slot machine went wrong, a repairman would come and fix it. Asimov was fascinated with the process. "I would watch and marvel at the many parts and would be overcome by an earnest desire to take apart, carefully and delicately, the entire machine. It was then my notion to line the parts up in order of decreasing size. I knew, however, that I had no desire to put them together again.
My attraction to mechanical objects was purely destructive, never constructive., and I realized it. In my whole life, therefore, I never fooled myself into thinking I wanted to be an engineer or an auto mechanic or anything of that sort."
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