EasyFitHO & N Scale Freight Car Loads Exclusive importer of Duha products from the Czech Republic. Handcrafted Plate Steel Load
(Premium Line)
HO-Scale Duha
available photographic resources. They should meet the needs of the Pennsyl- vania RR and Santa Fe modelers as they seek to fill out their passenger trains. These RPO cars retail for $69.98 each.—KEN BREHER
Main Street Cafe and South Side Salon and corner braces: HO scale Mfd. by City Classics, P.O. Box
(assembly required) *car not included
4 slightly offset steel plates on wooden blocking and blackened etched brass tie downs. Scale measurements: 41'L x 8-1/2'W x 2' T. Wheeling Steel 40' Plate Steel Load #11532 - $19.98
JWD Premium Products, PO Box 88, Liberty, ME 04949
www.jwdpremiumproducts.com
16502 Pittsburgh PA. 15242; website,
www.ctyclssc@aol.com. You have no doubt seen structures
such as these. Today they usually exist as boarded up or abandoned store- fronts in old downtown or neighbor- hood shopping areas. If you are part of that “maturing” Baby Boomer horde you no doubt may actually have shopped with your Mom or relatives in such stores. These are the mom and pop retail stores which were modern- ized in the Art Deco thirties with sleek and smooth storefronts clad in what appeared to be shiny metal or porce- lain panels. I personally can remember two such buildings in Port Richmond on Staten Island: Gonchars Jewelers and Stechmann’s ice cream parlor. These two retail establishments, be-
cause of their unusual fronts, stood out even to one who was at the time pretty much architecturally challenged. (even I.M. Pei was no doubt so challenged at 8 years of age, then again maybe not). Compared to the rows of typical wood and glass retail storefronts that lined Richmond Avenue, Stechman’s and Gonchars were different. They exuded a sense of modern amongst the classic wood storefronts. Fast forward some 50 or so years
and two models of two-story retail buildings with those modernized fronts are on my workbench for review. City Classics, reliable and creative U.S. manufacturer of uniquely typical city/downtown retail and high rise buildings, has added this style of build- ing, one that has long been missing from our commercial scenes, to its line of fine structures. A brief description on the packaging states, “Main St.
Café is a classic example of modernized style storefronts that first started ap- pearing in the 1930’s. The fronts often featured brightly colored panels of glass, plastic or metal.” One of the ma- terials used, I was told by Russ at City Classics, was a glass product called Vitrolite®, I never heard of it before and Russ provided a link to Wikipedia: “Vitrolite was an opaque pigmented
glass manufactured by Pilkington Brothers in the United Kingdom and The Vitrolite Company (1908-1935) then Libbey Owens Ford (1935-195?) in the United States. The material was available in various colours and was used for internal and external tiling and facades of buildings from the 1920s to the 1950s, and is often associ- ated with the streamlining of the Art Deco and Art Moderne movements. Vitrolite has not been manufactured in the United States since 1947. Because Vitrolite is glass, it shares the benefits and problems of glass. Due to it being a non-porous substance, unlike a materi- al such as marble, it does not harbour bacteria, accordingly it was used ex- tensively in bathrooms and kitchens. It is a delicate substance, breaking easily and became obsolete with the emer- gence of cheaper and more durable substances.” Now we know about Vitrolite. What
did we do before the internet? Open the plastic bag and you find the familiar four wall castings, roof, chim- ney, windows, doors, roof trim, glazing, decals for signs and additional paper signs and window treatments. The fronts are different with the South Side Salon having the build date in stone in a raised decorative brick parapet exten- sion above the second story. This is a typical detail one sees in any downtown area with structures this age. The modernized fronts are different,
as well. The Main Street Café has a more square and geometric pattern to the panels, while the Salon features a curved deco return on the end of the main window. This is a very attractive unusual feature in a model structure.
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FEBRUARY 2012
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