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.

Imperial Six Mockup

Another one on my list of possible buildings for the Alta Vista TC is the old Imperial Six movie theatre. As with the A& A mockup, I was lucky with this one too, and was able to find a fairly good photo of the facade that doesn't have a lot of perspective distortion.

A City of Toronto Archives photo of the Imperial Six in its heyday.

It has a great look and is unlike most other movie houses. More importantly, it says 'Toronto' to me. 

These mockups are just boxes folded up from bristol board with an HO scale image printed from my computer taped to the front. When I look at the Six the people still seem a bit too large - they might be OO in the image - but the building itself doesn't look too bad. I'll have to ponder this one a bit more because I'm still a bit uneasy with the dimensions.

A&A mockup

I'm fiddling around with ideas for scenes and buildings on the Alta Vista TC. One of my bucket-list builds is A&A's Yonge Street store, which was demolished many years ago. I found quite a number of pictures online, and even one that seems to be suitable for use as a template for the facade.

I sliced the facade from the larger image, and fiddled with the size until some HO figures were just about the same size of the silhouetted figures on the sidewalk. I'll use the b&w image for creating the parts - although a number of the shapes will need to be straightened up - and I printed a colour version for a mockup to see how it might look on the layout and get an idea of its size. It's a little bigger than the prototype, but it looks about right, and the little extra height will increase its presence.

Baby Spumoni's Almost Big Adventure

Cal and I got the Spumoni Club Coach out of storage to go on an inspection tour of John's legendary 8 Paws RR.

However, Engine 38 had other ideas: try as we might it wouldn't go. No lights, no budging, no creeping, no movement of any kind. It wouldn't go.

We walked over to the stream to see if we could find someone to help out, but the only person we found was pursuing his own hobby.

We then headed down the road a piece, but the hotel gave me the creeps for some reason so we kept walking.

We were getting a little desperate and thought about contacting nearby interplanetary craft for a pickup.

Instead we decided to follow a pleasant aroma.

Followed up with some pepto, a diaper change, and a phone call home for a ride. Hopefully we'll get ol' 38 fixed up soon for a proper tour.

The Dog Days of Summer

John sent me a photo of a new street-car he saw cruising the TTC's rails in Toronto this summer.

Galen tipped me off to these two great videos of the Lisbon trams.

Vince sent me a link to this inspirational model building video.

And a great vendor on Abe sent me this awesome book published in 1944  - after suitable payment of course :-)