Warehouse, torn down several years ago. Maybe it had a cov-
ered dock, because in the 1950s (the era I model) it handled
mostly food stuffs, such as sugar and flour, and many canned
goods. You don’t want to get flour or sugar wet.
To represent the narrow alleyways, I wanted to place another
building right next to it. I’d always wanted to model the old
brick Mission Furniture building with its large recessed and
open loading docks. Actually located in another part of town
switched by the Santa Fe, modeler’s license allowed me to
move it here. ATSF modeler Keith Jordan turned me on to the
very versatile Walthers Cornerstone Merchant’s Row III kit. He
used it to model a fascinating building I had modeled a decade
or two earlier, but his model was so much better thanks in
part to this kit. It has the kind of arched brick window recesses
found in several of my favorite old buildings in LA. Ever since
Structures in tight places - 3
2: Cut one bay of the long loading dock wall off so it
can be added to the front wall to make it longer.
2
Keith
showed me
his model
made with
this kit, I’d
been dying
to make one
myself.
Once again, I
only needed
parts of the
kit since
most of the
building
would be
hidden or
open load-
ing docks.
I ended up
using part
of the back
and one side
wall so I still
have enough
of the kit
to build the
storefronts
(if I only had room for them, but I’ll find a use).
It’s worth making note of kits that make good kitbashes,
because not all do. They need to be easy to cut apart and join
back together. While the Merchant’s Row was a snap, the
3
3: Then cut it flush to the windows, using
a razor saw.
MRH-Feb 2014
