Dereninger Camera Repair

Dereninger Camera Repair is a one-bench camera repair shop at 616 E 63rd Street in East Brookside, founded in 1946 by Cecil Dereninger and bought in 2000 by Archie and Mary Pat McGhee, who had by then already worked there for decades. Archie McGhee — a former Navy electrician who came to the shop in the 1960s — repairs film cameras by cannibalising parts from dead bodies and machining replacements when none exist. The shop keeps no computer and no internet connection.

Description

Dereninger Camera Repair is a small suite in the commercial block at 63rd and Brookside Boulevard, on the eastern edge of brookside, where film cameras go to be fixed. It has been in business since 1946 and is one of the very few camera repair benches left in the Kansas City metro.¹

Archie McGhee, a former Navy electrician, started at the shop in the 1960s and had been there more than forty years by the time of the 2018 reporting; he is described as working seven days a week. His practice is unusual and worth recording: he salvages components from junked cameras, and where a part cannot be bought at all, he makes it. The shop serves individual photographers and, notably, area high-school art programmes still teaching film.¹

Mary Pat McGhee began handling camera intake and the books in 1990. In 2000 the two of them bought the business outright from the Dereninger family, keeping the founder’s name on the door.¹

The shop’s refusal of digital infrastructure is not affectation but operating fact: as of 2018 it had no internet and no computers, and a landline without long-distance service.¹ It has no website, no e-mail contact, and no social presence the Compiler could find — which is why the customary web-verification instruments do not work on this subject.

Goods and services

• Film camera repair — the core of the business¹²
• Lens repair and servicing²
• Custom part fabrication and parts salvage where replacement components are no longer manufactured¹
• Service to high-school photography and art programmes in the area¹

History

Cecil Dereninger opened the shop in 1946 on Broadway. It later moved to the crestwood-shops and then to its present address at 616 E 63rd Street.¹ Archie McGhee joined in the 1960s; Mary Pat McGhee came in in 1990; the McGhees bought the business from the Dereninger family in 2000 and kept the name.¹

The shop’s survival is a function of the film revival. Where camera repair once existed in every commercial district, Dereninger is now one of the last benches in the metro, and the trade knowledge on it is not being visibly replaced. Whether there is a successor to Archie McGhee is not established by any source found. “

Sources

Links

• The Pitch feature (2018): https://www.thepitchkc.com/zooming-in-on-east-brooksides-dereninger-camera-repair-still-analogue-after-all-these-years/
• Chase Castor photo essay: https://www.chasecastor.com/dereninger-s-camera-repair

Footnotes

1. The Pitch — Chase Castor, “Zooming in on East Brookside’s Dereninger Camera Repair, still analogue after all these years,” 12 December 2018 — asserts: founded 1946 by Cecil Dereninger; original location on Broadway, then the Crestwood Shops, then 616 E 63rd Street; Archie McGhee employed since the 1960s, a former Navy electrician, working seven days a week; Mary Pat McGhee started in 1990 on intake and bookkeeping; the McGhees bought the business from the Dereninger family in 2000; parts salvaged from broken cameras and fabricated when unavailable; service to area high-school art programmes; no internet, no computers, and a landline without long-distance. The single substantive source for this page. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Chase Castor — “Dereninger’s Camera Repair,” photo essay — asserts: photographic documentation of the shop interior, the bench and the proprietors; corroborates the camera and lens repair trade. Companion to ¹ by the same photographer. ↩ ↩²