Our own vintage town

[LizzieMaine]

Where I live now we have an airport -- built by the WPA -- which is now home to a transportation museum, and we get exactly that type of air traffic. So we could definitely use something like that. Grab the pick-and-shovel boys and get started.

 

[Panache]

F M,

I would humbly suggest that there is a massive difference between

"I imagine a town where everyone dresses nicely like the movies of the thirties and forties. A place where people have manners, civic values, and respect for others and themselves"

and

"I imagine a town where I can disrespect/boot out/ mistreat/ alienate anyone who acts or appears in a manner I don't like and it's perfectly OK"

If you are going to dream of an ideal place, let it show your ideals.

Assuming "Vintage" (or whatever it is ultimately called) is a place where any sort of bullying is frowned on, I'd like to run the high school library and be the president of the local Scottish Society.

Cheers

Jamie

Well, let me set the record straight...

The hippies I've met are those who believe that the world owes them a living and have little or no respect to property, proper hygiene, laws or contributing to society.

The thought of a calm, relaxed community with kind and self respecting citizens I think is what w're amin' for. No Woodstock's, no Birkenstock's and headbands and free love circles thank you.

Prejudice will occur naturally, there will be those who wont want to associate with someone because of their religious practices or maybe they find them to be competition in the fashion world or what not. Some will get a long and some wont for who knows why? It's just one of those things of life we don't like but, it happens.

I'm seeing a town and not a major metropolitan set up. Maybe a rail line, a sleepy station with a few steam locos, a few heavy weights (Pullman cars) and a few gas stations, a garage, a corner drug store/soda fountain, record shop, dress shop, tailor shop, butcher shop, bakery, grocery store, library, two schools, post office, an telephone exchange building, a Town Hall, fire department, police department, a movie theater, a night club/ballroom... ya know, kind of like a Bedford Falls if you will.

 

[Grant Fan]

I would say in this town we need to have rules about attire, and presentation of ones self. I would say jean are find but perhaps make it a weekend only thing and it must be done in a modern fashion. Also I would like to be a guidance counselor. Oh and would like the town to be one of those places where everyone has amazing homes and can leave their doors unlocked safely.

 

[Mr Vim]

Having our doors unlocked any time would be a nice thing GrantFan, but I don't know, I think I would still be in a habit of locking mine.

I talked with my artist friend and she said she loved the idea of doing designs for an all vintage town, I showed her this thread and she has some ideas... she is a graphic artist by trade but also does work as a concept artist for movies, so I expect to have some really awesome art work soon to show you all.

 

[jamespowers]

Having our doors unlocked any time would be a nice thing GrantFan, but I don't know, I think I would still be in a habit of locking mine.

I talked with my artist friend and she said she loved the idea of doing designs for an all vintage town, I showed her this thread and she has some ideas... she is a graphic artist by trade but also does work as a concept artist for movies, so I expect to have some really awesome art work soon to show you all.

Now we are talking. At least something that we can look at.
I would say that with the kind of police force we are going to have, we could pretty much feel safe in our own homes.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm sad to know my 63 Impala, Avocado Green 79 Buick, and my woodie Chevy Caprice won't be let in, though I was expecting my Crown Victoria to be on the outs I think a nice farm outside city limits would be best for this guy here, so I could keep my wheels. I'd buy myself a (1959 Manufacture Date) 1960 Chevy Impala for my Treks into town.

 

[Diamondback]

Sorry, if I'm in on this there'd be at least three anachronistic vehicles anyway: two Trans Ams and the MIBmobile...

so I think an exception could be made for your Impala.

 

[Derek WC]

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this, or know's of it, so I'll spit it out.

I was reading an article in Good Old Day's Looking Back that said there was a town somewhere in Sweden (I'll dig out the magazine sometime and name it) where everyone dresses how we do, goes to rockabilly concerts, has the same ideals as most of us do, and generally, everyone lives in the past.

Also some guy (I was reading on Reminisce magazine) owns a couple of acres and pretty much made it a town from the 1950's with a steel plated diner, old fashioned gas station, and all that jazz, somewhere in Indiana I think, also if my memory serves it right, only elderly from care homes can visit it... though I am not sure.

Also is this town that the thread is about a reality, or just a fantasy?

 

[Mr Vim]

OKAY PEOPLE!

My artist friend would like an itemized list of the Vintage Town mainstays so that she can draw them: I've went through it myself and I have the following:

A drive in theater and also a sit in theater

A drive in hamburger joint of some sort

Public transportation, preferably a rail trolley

A downtown section to include:

Shops,

A town hall,

and a radio station

What did I miss? I think that covers it all. If I left anything out, let me know before I talk with her.

 

[PistolPete1969]

Speaking as a Law Enforcement Officer myself, let me put my 2 cents in......

There is a time & place for "Old School" law enforcement, and there is a time & place for "Mayberry" law enforcement. The most effective officers I have met have been a blend of both, and know when to be which. Being too much of one or the other is not necessarily a good thing.

Also, I volunteer to be the head deputy or lead detective; I will let others be the Chief.


Pete

 

[Diamondback]

Pete, I believe the phrase is "an iron fist in a velvet glove".

As for this thread's intentions, I think it's a blend of pipedream for some and serious research/conceptual-work for others (and I've played on both teams myself--the latter driving my research into abandoned old towns--far easier to restore a preexisting town than build new from bare-earth).

 

[Derek WC]

Ahh yes, and correcting myself from before, where I read about that town in Sweden. It was actually in the National Geographic magazine where I read it.

 

[jamespowers]

OKAY PEOPLE!

My artist friend would like an itemized list of the Vintage Town mainstays so that she can draw them: I've went through it myself and I have the following:

A drive in theater and also a sit in theater

A drive in hamburger joint of some sort

Public transportation, preferably a rail trolley

A downtown section to include:

Shops,

A town hall,

and a radio station

What did I miss? I think that covers it all. If I left anything out, let me know before I talk with her.

You forgot to include the bandstand downtown along with the fountain and lots of parking with a lawn strip, kind of triangular for a park in the town square. Also the candy store, drive-in food joint, bank, police station, Bucket of Blood Bar , several mom and pop restaurants, post office, school and a car repair place. That is about all I can remember now.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Don't forget an industrial section -- a small shoe factory, say, or a clothing factory, or a pickle works, or a sardine cannery. Anything to give year round jobs that doesn't involve pandering to tourists.

We also need a dairy, with a fleet of horse-drawn milk carts making deliveries every morning. And a coal and ice dealer, with a grimy man in a grimy truck hauling fuel for the winter.

 

[jamespowers]

Don't forget an industrial section -- a small shoe factory, say, or a clothing factory, or a pickle works, or a sardine cannery. Anything to give year round jobs that doesn't involve pandering to tourists.

I knew you would help me fill in the gaps there. lol Those are all good ideas. I like a pickle works---probably because I like pickles.
I forgot to mention a gas station, Small appliance and large appliance repair shop. We certainly also need builders---carpenters, roofers and the like.
More will come to me as I sit here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We need *several* gas stations -- the town where I grew up had six of them, for just a population of 2000. More gas stations mean more and better price wars.

 

[jamespowers]

We need *several* gas stations -- the town where I grew up had six of them, for just a population of 2000. More gas stations mean more and better price wars.

Works for me.

 

[dhermann1]

Parking, of course. But most people get around by trolley.

 

[Mr Vim]

Well, guys, you've seen one cannery and you've seen them all. We have one in Juneau that's been operating for years and its been remodeled time and again and its still look the bloody same.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Don't forget the Cheese Factory! Ours is one of the biggest businesses in town, even I work there LOL.