Post #121213 by Polynesiac on Fri, Oct 22, 2004 7:00 PM

I talked with alan today and he told me that trader luke lived and worked in Pedro in the 50's. His first shop was on Channel St, directly under the 110 freeway (channel street intersects Gaffy and pacific by the waterfront, near where Harbor blvd starts) and then later moved to B street in Wilmington (alan couldn't remember exactly where).
According to the article reprinted in the tiki news, you could travel down to trader lukes store and have a tiki custom carved for you on the spot within a few hours. He also sold a TON of nautical bric-a-brac (or junk or crap depending on how you look at it). The picture of Trader Luke's store in the tiki news shows a rather large building, so I'm assuming that it was the wilmington location.
Alans personal recolection of the guy is that he was a real "character". If you ever come to know San Pedro, you'll find out very quickly that there are quite a few "character"'s here. He said he didn't particularly care for Trader Lukes style of carving, but was very impressed that he could make a living doing it - and that so many people loved it.