Small Structure From a Photo

The Woods Cigar and Newspaper agency taken around the turn of the 20th century.

A couple of weeks ago, while browsing through Facebook, I ran across the above photo of a small Cigar and News shop. These small businesses once thrived through the cities and towns of America and the somewhat fancy signage intrigued me enough that I wanted to model it. Although the photos seems to indicate that the shop was part of a larger building, I modeled it as a stand-along frame structure.
   

My model of the store. The interior photo is not very visible in this view but it suggests that the building is more than just an empty shell.

 My model was built from Evergreen styrene sheets and strips. Estimating from the photo gave me a structure of about 15 feet wide. I modeled it to be about 25 feet long. the interesting parts of the model included the deep-set window with the "Magazine and Papers" sign and the "Laundry" sign protruding from the face of the building. Of course, the main sign seemed, perhaps, a bit fancy for a small business but also added to its appeal for me.
     Construction was straight-forward using Tichy doors and corbels. The molding below the window was half-round stock. Decals were made using Adobe Illustrator and printed on an Alps printer. Since it is such a large window, I located a photo of a typical newstand and sized it to fit inside the building to give it an appropriate interior. While this small building cannot hold both magazines and the steamy atmosphere of washing clothes, many Chinese laundries were outside establishments and will eventually show up behind the shop. This little project was a nice respite from building larger warehouse and other structures for Farmington. Next, I will be constructing another grain warehouse, this one made from brick.