Getting started on Taronna's TD 'Tower'

Plexiglas blanks for the TD 'Tower' model

Once the workshop re-org was finished I decided to do what I think is the most difficult job associated with building a version of TD Tower 1 for the Taronna layout: cutting the wall blanks from 1/8" plexiglas sheet.

Again, like cleaning up the workshop, there is nothing bloggable from the activity as it was mostly me practicing cutting plexiglas as my usual 'technique' destroyed many pieces. However, after considerable practice I was able to get the 4 blanks I need for the model building's walls.

I say 'Tower' because my model will be considerably smaller than a properly scaled rendition. In HO, a properly scaled version would be around 2440 mm tall and mine is 495 mm, and not quite as wide as the length of a PCC streetcar; however, when placed amongst the other buildings I plan on having on the Taronna layout, it will seem quite tall. I'm going to write a post on building heights for Taronna to explain my thinking on this, but for now it was important for me to overcome the psychological hurdle of cutting out the wall blanks for the model.

Two early neighbours of the TD Bank Tower

[Photo inside the back cover of Bruce West's 1979 book, Toronto. That black slab just to the left of the CN Tower is the TD Bank Tower. And, just to the left and behind the TD Bank Tower is the Commerce Court tower. To the right of the CN Tower is First Canadian Place.]

I was going through my father's books and came across one called Toronto by Bruce West. It is the 1979 second edition to the original published in 1967. It had this to say about the TD Bank Tower.

But, bewildering as it became to many of its residents, Toronto was to continue sprouting outward, upward and even downward in many spectacular and rapid ways during the next ten years. Especially upward. For one thing, the dizzying height of 740 feet achieved by the main tower of the Toronto-Dominion Centre on King Street, which had made it the loftiest building in all of Canada, would soon be surpassed by that of the white and gleaming spire of the Commerce Court building, whose height of 784 feet would in turn soon be eclipsed by the 935 feet of nearby First Canadian Place.

In HO scale, First Canadian Place would stand about 10.75 feet tall, and although much taller than the TD Bank tower, it and Commerce Court never seemed to me to have the raw visual power that the black slab does. 

[Photo inside the front cover of Toronto. Scrunched in the fold the caption says, 'Toronto 1854']

TD Bank Tower Mockup in N scale

No, I didn't build a second TD Bank Tower mockup in N-scale, just re-photographed it with a Bachmann N-scale PCC nearby (a reader mentioned that this PCC is closer to 1/150 than 1/160, so calibrate your eyes accordingly). 

A non-selectively compressed tower in N would stand about 4-1/2' tall, which is a bit more than twice the height of this 2' tall mockup. Also, the mockup's ground floor lobby is probably a bit too tall in N (26.5'), and a bit too short in HO (14.5'). 

I haven't tried mockups before, but playing with them is rather fun, and it's good to see the possibilities without having to commit to a complete model.

TD Bank Tower Mockup

I have a love-hate relationship with skyscrapers. On the one hand, they're pure expressions of power, but on the other, for some I have a grudging admiration for that expression. The Toronto-Dominion Centre is in that latter category.

The TD Bank Tower was the first skyscraper in what would be a complex of towers in Toronto's financial district. It was finished in 1967, and was the first skyscraper built in Canada. At the time it was the tallest in the world outside of New York City. 

That tower shook things up and the city would never be the same again. Look at that photo of Toronto's skyline sometime after the TD Bank Tower was built. There're no other towers there. It's presence dates and stodgifies every other building. It's as if that 2001 monolith plopped straight down into Toronto to move civilization forward from its neolithic beginnings. Transit-wise, the TTC was still running its streetcar fleet with those PCCs that were first designed and built in the 1930s. If the TD Bank Tower was where you worked, one could drop you off at your office. Talk about future shock.

There was nothing stopping that shock-wave from spreading to the sleepy Scarborough suburb where I grew-up. I was in primary school then, and we went on a class trip to ride the tower's elevator to the observation deck to cast our prepubescent, philistinic eyes over the city. We were going to see the future and the TD Bank Tower was the time-machine. Prior to the trip the elevator was a topic of much discussion and how strategic gum chewing would prevent ear-popping as the elevator sped to the top. I don't recall the elevator ride, or if gum chewing was effective, or what the view was like - and never will because the observation deck is closed, and a forest of johnny-come-lately towers now surround the monolith and its brethren. But the trip did leave a lasting impression on my tender psyche.

One problem with the Alta Vista TC layout is that its skyline is too even - it's too uniformly low-rise for my liking - and it's too easy to see from one end to another. I'm thinking a skyscraper or high-rise or two might solve this problem. I'm not going to use just any generic tower because the Alta Vista TC isn't just some 'traction' layout where the buildings are afterthoughts - no, that monolithic icon that's stuck in my mind has to make an appearance. 

Easier said than done. In HO, the real McCoy would be well over 8 feet tall - taller than my layout is long ! This is where I had to rummage around in my E. L. Moore inspired bag-of-tricks and pull out the one labelled Selective Compression. Warning to readers, open this one with care :-)

[No tower, looking toward the Neville Park Loop]

Yes, yes, go ahead and laugh, the absurdity of it isn't lost on me, but there is some method to my madness. I want to get the proportions right and later, when a model comes along, the important details. And, this is the really funny part, even though it needs to be small enough to fit on the layout, it still needs to be 'tall'. What I mean is, in relation to the other buildings on the layout it needs to stand-out tallness-wise, but not overly so, so that it doesn't seem wildly out-of-place. In other words, it needs to read as 'tall' in comparison to its neighbours, but doesn't actually need to be 'tall'.

After some fiddling with dimensions and proportions, I settled on a  mockup that measures 24" tall by 8" across by 4" wide. It's made from 3/16" foamboard: black sheets for the tower and white for the lower level. I haven't forgotten my E. L. Moore roots as the support columns at the four corners are balsa strips. 

[With tower, looking toward the Neville Park Loop]

Yes, it blocks the view. And it's 'tall' and towers above everything else like it's supposed to. Mission accomplished. 

More importantly though, when I placed it on the layout the scene seemed to pop. I had a satisfying feeling that things were heading in the right direction. There's a lot more pleasant playing ahead, but it's starting to feel right.