Obviousy, the most important thing about modeling a large city is to make it look like a large city. To create a small town atmosphere with the structures and call it Chicago is stretching it a bit. I'll describe some of the techniques I used to attempt to capture the look and feel of Philadelphia.

The skyscrapers were constructed from 30" X 40" sheets of foamcore that is available at Staples and Walmart. The windows were cut out with an exacto knife and a utility knife. I went through several blades as I had to cut several hundred windows. The pilasters, etc. were made from wooden clothspins and craft (popsickle) sticks. The background panels have the actual Philly buildings painted in acrylic on large canvasses. To remain contemporary, I have to add the Comcast building which is currently the tallest building in Philadelphia. In order to gain access to the interior of the 13' X 19' pod, I designed three lift-up sections disguised as city blocks. This gave the city enough bulk to help its massive appearance.

The first objective was to replicate some familiar landmarks. I covered 30th Street Station and the Delaware River in previous articles. Southwest Philadelphia has many refineries and the PW has a small one. It was originally built by my brother-in-laws late father Ernie Rink for his HO layout in the 1950's from an article in the old Model Builder magazine. I outfitted it with S scale windows and doors, put down some gravel, and installed some lighting.

Recently, I added a block of rowhouses as similar to the one I grew up in in West Philly as I could remember. The primary material used was foamcore. The only commercial parts were the porch railings.

Next, I tried to simulate some famous Philly industries. The Philadelphia Electric Co. (PECO) sits next to a Lehigh Valley Models rowhouse.

Growing up in Philly meant growing up on Taskycakes. The Tasty Baking Co. was based in North Philly and we all had our favorites. Mine were the Butterscotch Krimpets and Lemon Tastypies. I kitbashed four HO Heljan bakeries and news agencies to achieve the necessary mass for the structure. S scalers make judicious use of HO structures that have the necessary window size and separation to look OK for a slightly larger scale (S is 136% of HO).


Breyers Ice Cream was another familiar Philadelphia industry.

The HO Heljan Brewery is a staple on S scale layouts for obvious reasons.
 

The Penn Western headquarters building is a scale 220' tall and sits next to 30th Street Station. Another skyscraper when stacked is a scale 300' high.