As you know, if you’ve been following this blog, the semi-fictional Rose City is the locale of the model railroad that I’ve been constructing with the assistance of my friend Meredith. You may also recall that there are nine named neighborhoods in the city — and although all are named, most are still far from completion. Over the next n weeks, for some large value of n, I will show images of each neighborhood, once they are far enough along. The oldest one, Center City, is closest to that goal, so we will start there. The time period is September of 1969.

We start at the northwest corner of the corner at a popular location, Overlook Park. As you see, it overlooks the commercial part of the neighborhood:

Flying over the overlook, we zoom in on that commercial part, anchored by the local firehouse:

There seems to be some sort of commotion across the street at the building next to the hardware store. A demonstration or protest? Let’s take a closer look:

Next we see the controversial urban removal project promoted by Mayor Katz and his newly appointed Commissioner of Housing, Seymour Grafft, whose motto is on the billboard (the urban removal billboard, that is, not the movie ad). Grafft clearly has a long way to go:

What’s going on behind that VW microbus? Let’s zoom in and try to see what the police and the firefighters are doing:

John Wayne is looking on above the army recruiting center, which doesn’t seem to be getting any business. Well, it’s 1969 in Massachusetts, after all.

Finally, we conclude this post as a trolley and a school bus drive by carefully, although the timing with the crossing gate seems a bit off. Fortunately Massachusetts drivers are known for their caution, even drivers of trolleys and school buses:

Categories: Model Railroading