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Post by Vermin King on Sept 27, 2017 21:15:26 GMT -9
The turn-of-the century discussions has really gotten me looking at historic buildings that can be incorporated into designs. Last Sunday I took some photos of the old Citizens Security Bank of Englewood, now a beauty shop. Actually an early 1900s building, but the brickwork is wonderful, and I've been looking for old photos to get an idea of how the windows originally looked. The oldest photo I have found is from the 70's. I really wish I could find the original windows. BTW, this bank held the note on Harry Truman's haberdashery. The bank later picked up a savings and loan, as a separate entity, for which Truman was the head of 'depositor acquisitions'. Kind of a questionable deal with ties to the Pendergast Political Machine. It was from this position that he leaped into politics Been working on cleaning, squaring up, and prepping for period-proper windows and doors Getting there. Need to finish up the footing at the bottom, and find the windows and doors I thought I'd saved. I think the Front/South side will be less tedious. The west side is where the 1920's post office is, so I'd planned on having it as a plain brick wall except for the second floor windows. The back/north just has some windows and doors.
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Post by missileer on Oct 27, 2017 18:44:44 GMT -9
Now, that is a very interesting building. I am going to enjoy following your progress. Thanks for posting this!
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 28, 2017 4:09:05 GMT -9
Wow, I haven't worked on this for a month. I need to get back to it
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Post by Adam Souza on Oct 31, 2017 16:55:43 GMT -9
This looks promising.
I thought of using Google street view to reproduce the local comic book shop, but it didn't work out.
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 31, 2017 17:30:12 GMT -9
You can always take your own photos
You want views that are as square as possible. I learned something doing the Harvard House and Garrick Inn. If you have similar views that are offset, you paste on photo into the other and get rid of trees, signs and people that are in the way.
But it's tedious
I've given up on views when it was the bank, but I would sure like to get back at least to WWII-era. I know a guy that used to office there in the early 60's. Never took a photo of the place. So, it's time to use artistic license. In some of the small towns in Missouri where the highways by-passed the towns, there are some old storefronts with 1920's and 1930's facades. So I a taking photos of some of the better examples to fuse with this building.
An interesting thing with this building is that most old banks have the word 'Bank' engraved in limestone on the façade somewhere, but not on this one
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Post by missileer on Nov 17, 2017 19:57:48 GMT -9
Looking forward to seeing your final interpretation. And thanks for posting the historical notes. I learned something new about Truman. Had a lot of respect for him as an individual; he definitely got dealt a hand from a stacked deck.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 17, 2017 20:16:53 GMT -9
Sorry that I haven't really done anything on this for a while. There is a salon in the downstairs of the building, so I thought I would stop by and see if the shop owner was the business owner. Nope. I was hoping to get a bit lucky and track down some more history and possibly old photos
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 26, 2017 19:08:00 GMT -9
Well, after getting caught up after the weekend, I figured I needed to get back to this. Those limestone squares needed to be more uniform, so I found the best looking one and enlarged it slightly and pasted it into each of the positions. Straightened up the foundation brick trim, and some of the other brickwork, decided on the window framework. This building has the main entrance under a corner overhang with a brick column at the building corner, so I took out that visually distracting stuff. Once I get the front cleaned up, I will work out the piece that fits under the overhang I found doors I like down in Cole Camp a while back
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Post by missileer on Nov 27, 2017 17:38:35 GMT -9
Things are looking good and I like the doors. They LOOK like bank doors!
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 27, 2017 17:55:56 GMT -9
I've decided to go more shop-like than bank-like, but I like how it is shaping up Seeing the thumbnails, some of the newer brick areas look more noticeable than when viewed larger (the three brick areas that are more orange). I think I'm going to have to do something with that. If you go up to the first post, you can see how many flower pots and modern items had to be removed, as well as shadows and wires and signs. The north end is going to have a lot of add-ons removed, maybe more than the front. The west side is the one that abuts the old post office from the 1930's. I haven't decided whether I'm going to put any details on the ground floor of that side.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 27, 2017 20:13:50 GMT -9
Razzum frazzum. I was resizing the pages so that the doors would be 1.5 inches tall. The East wall is too long for Letter-sized paper. If I drop it to HO scale, it will fit, but no. Time to get creative
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 28, 2017 14:18:15 GMT -9
As I was contemplating how best to break up the side walls, I was looking at the 'stepped' top of the west wall, and it occurred to me that the two chimneys look odd. Then it occurred to me to see if I could gain any clues to what is on the roof or used to be there by grabbing a satellite view. Images were too small to be useful, but there is an unusual square on the roof, centered, and about a third of the way back from the front. I wonder if it had one of those old 'dovecote' air conditioners on the roof. About the right place and size. hmmm EDIT-- As I was working out the tabs, the division of the east wall, and the fold-over walls to attach the roof (think Tommygun's buildings), I think that my photos resulted in a color gradient. The darker contrast brickwork seemed lighter on the ground level than the upper floors. I think the sun reflects from the top of the brick, whereas on the upper floor, I was catching more shadow. So I used brightness/contrast to even it out. I also didn't like the front main window/upstairs door section. I made the window divider even with the divider between the door and the transom. Decided to make the west wall and back wall as utilitarian as they really are. On the back/north wall, it is pretty obvious where an exterior stairway went up to the upstairs door. It surely was original, but I imagine it was replaced at least once before it was permanently removed. I took another drive by the building today, wondering if I could get a better view of the back and west wall. In the original post, you can see a bit of the building to the west (the 1930's post office). Evidently, it has been given several slip-shod additions on the back over the years. Looks like they were done before it was incorporated into Independence and subject to building codes. The thing is, they obscure any good views of the west wall. So, I will just have to conjecture Can't post the east wall until it is broken up. 17.2 Mb is too large. Maybe tomorrow I've been giving a lot of thought to the east wall break up and the roof inner wall. If the first iteration works, I'll be pleasantly surprised. It will have the inner wall offset from the face to make the join more sturdy. The two faces will be connected by a join strip so that the joint will be flush
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Post by missileer on Nov 30, 2017 17:42:31 GMT -9
Sounds like a good plan. I wish you success on the first attempt; I know how frustrating re-dos can be.
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Post by Vermin King on Dec 1, 2017 15:27:07 GMT -9
I got an interesting call today. The current owner of the building. We got together for a few minutes and shared some historical insights.
In the document filed by the City of Independence indicating buildings that should be considered for the National Registry, it was stated that the first post office in the area was built next to the bank building to the west. Incorrect. The post office was built on the north end of the bank building (the entrance being the one on the east wall. Of course, this is the same city that tore down the Weston Wagon Shop from 1838 to expand the farmer's market. Idiots.
The bank and post office actually had a hallway connecting the two. The architect was Homer Vaughn who did several other local buildings. It was a great meeting. Supposedly the owners are going to email me some more info, including photos of the reconstruction. The square on the roof is a mystery. The coal furnace was in the basement of the bank. The chimney probably went up the north end of that structure before the post office was built. The chimney goes into the post office and immediately goes out the west wall and up the west side of the building. Other chimneys seem to be related to the time spent as a bakery. During the reconstruction, everyone involved was amazed that there were no holes to the roof. Nothing drilled through. Nothing cut out. It was a solid roof front to back and was probably one room front to back originally. This goes along with a plat map from the 1930's that listed this building as a 'bank/meeting hall'. Something else that was odd is that the bank has a basement and the post office has a crawl space. The basement extends a couple feet beyond the front of the building, but no one knows why. It isn't for coal delivery, because the coal chute is on the east side.
Great meeting
I have to fix some of my revisions to the building. The window arrangement on the rear annex is original layout. The alcove is also original. The bank entrance has the original framing, windows and door. So, this could be interesting with the additional photos
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Post by Vermin King on Dec 2, 2017 9:47:36 GMT -9
Since the entrance door and window frames are original, I went by and took photos. Also took new photos of the post office entrance. The owner was busy, so I didn't ask some important questions. But currently, I am only shooting to have it done by Christmas The triangle floor at the entrance corner was marble. The black tiles weren't original, but I wanted to ask how it was originally done (since they had stripped it all down to the brick). Since the post office door and framing are original (except covered in cladding), I also wanted a better photo of that entrance
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Post by missileer on Feb 3, 2018 20:06:32 GMT -9
VK, Did you ever do any more work on this project? It looked like you were well on the road and you mentioned trying to finish it by Christmas. Just asking in a selfish way.
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Post by Vermin King on Feb 3, 2018 20:28:28 GMT -9
The owner of the building hasn't returned my calls or emails since this stalled. In the corner entrance, the door and windows are original. I doubt the black tile is. I was also under the impression that the original stairs were in some photos that were going to be emailed.
If I am feeling better next week, I might drop in on them again and see if they are still interested in giving me historical info. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to 'wing it'
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Post by Vermin King on Mar 3, 2018 6:36:17 GMT -9
While waiting for Walmart to test a car battery (under full-replacement warranty ... Yay), I dropped in, and they promise to get me info next week. We'll see.
One interesting thing I found out is that those black tiles on the entry façade are original. That really surprised me.
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Post by missileer on Mar 3, 2018 16:39:50 GMT -9
VK, Hope the battery worked out. I thought I had a starter problem, but it turned out to be the battery. Buying a heavy duty battery today is almost as bad (in price) as buying a rebuilt starter. I'll keep watching for the advances on the building.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 30, 2018 13:54:38 GMT -9
Where did it go? All my files for this are gone from this computer and my back-up. At one time I had it in DropBox, too. Let's hope it survives
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 30, 2018 18:26:53 GMT -9
It was on the spare computer under 'Independence', not bank or csb...
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Post by Vermin King on Dec 11, 2019 9:27:44 GMT -9
As I hope to finish this for Procrastinators Hoard, so revisited over lunch. Not all is here, so I have to regenerate parts, and of course do the back stairs.
My big concern is that I lost all of my photos for the 1827 Jackson County Courthouse, which I thought I would do as part of an Independence, Missouri set. My Weston Wagon Works photos and illustrations are also gone. Razzum frazzum
EDIT--
And the US Marshall's Home and Jail are gone, but I can easily get those, but not sure about the Civil War photo showing window treatments at the time.
Did a quick search on the Weston Blacksmith and Wagon Shop and got two photos. One from the Kansas Historical Society, and the other was from a blog post about their visit to the Frontier Trails Museum. On the old computer I had one illustration of the building and one of the wagon trains staging on Kansas Avenue in front of the building. Can't seem to be able to find those again. I think my three missing photos were from the research library of the Truman Library, but I haven't figured out how to get back in there.
I wish I could find anything on Hiram Young's Wagon Shop. Slave who bought his freedom and his wife's, then arranged for local slaves to work in his shop to buy their freedom (actually that almost sounds like a slightly different flavor of slavery, though). He also built schools and a college. Young didn't sell as many wagons as Weston, but nearly all the yokes used were his. He also held a federal contract to supply yokes
Samuel Weston's main claim to fame was as a primary instigator of the Mormon Expulsion from Independence, Missouri. But then again, his shop was still standing when I was in high school...
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