I need to get the rest of my town up to 1:20 so it’s time to create a new building. I decided that a 5 and 10 cent store would be a neat addition. I found a bunch of great plans of old buildings over at Build Your Own Illinois Main Street: http://www.state.il.us/hpa/ps/construct_mainstreet.htm One that caught my eye was the E. Stein Building (http://www.illinoishistory.gov/ps/construct_mainstreet_stein.htm)
The plans are in HO, but I really wanted to find some pictures of what the building looked like to help in my modeling efforts. The pictures on the site just don’t provide enough details. Google didn’t help at first, until I found out that this is now called Island’s Cafe and is located in Blue Island - a suburb of Chicago. I found some really great shots. The first looks like before the turn of the century. It was the Edward Stein Hardware Store.
Maybe about 1915 or so, it’s now a Dodge Dealer. Note the gas pump out front. Some of the details above the front windows are gone; part of the lower plate windows are paneled over as well. The side of the building is now brick, and the road looks paved.
Maybe 1970 or so 1980. The building has been painted and it’s lost some of the decorations on top. It’s now a restaurant.
A few years later and an ugly awning has been added; the front window area has been redone with brick and the door has been moved over to the left.
I found it interesting to see the changes over the years. I’m planning on building it much like the original, but with brick on the side. I downloaded the plans and started measuring it - fortunately, I still own a very nice HO ruler, allowing me to measure directly from the plans. It’s a BIG building! If I built it to scale size it would dwarf all of my other buildings. I decided to make it two thirds size on height and width. For depth, I settled on about 24 feet, instead of 66! To see how it might look, I printed the front plans out to 2/3 scale size.
I’ll put the door on the left side back to scale, and the downstairs section will have a door in the center - much like the original picture above. But, this size looks like it will fit in with my other buildings. I don’t have the right plastic on hand, so I’ve put in an order for more. Once that arrives, I should be able to get to work.
