BJ George - Paper West Side Warehouse Redux

This project was originally posted back on Nov 1, 2011 but back then I didn't post the templates. BJ George, the designer of the templates, based the model on photos I had taken of the original Marx West Side Warehouse from their 'Untouchables' playset. My build effort turned out okay except for a wonky loading dock LOL This paper version is much smaller than the original and I never did get around to building the Railway Express Agency truck and delivery driver - my bad, sorry BJ! Anywho here have the warehouse once again with templates. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Here the paper version is shown with an original Marx Untouchables tin car.

Some more comparison shots with Marx 35mm figures

For comparison, here's some photos of the original Marx West Side Warehouse. As you cane see, BJ did a terrific job of converting tin to paper!

B.J. George - Paper West Side Warehouse

While the Schreiber-Bogen "Pfalz bei Kaub" project is ever so s-l-o-w-l-y progressing I managed to work on some other things. Yesterday Toys & Stuff featured the Marx Westside Warehouse from their 'Untouchables' playset. Today we feature the paper version, courtesy of B.J. George. B.J. is the 'mayor' of PapervilleUSA, a Yahoo Discussion Group concentrating on paper building structures mostly but other paper modeling is also entertained. Over the past months B.J. has been taking my photos of various Marx tin-litho structures featured right here on Toys & Stuff and turning them into paper models! Today's project is the first to be featured. You can download the file here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B02DAyOuvUllYTY1NzYwYTctZDMzNS00NmZmLWFmOWEtYzU4ZmFiMDhiOTJh

He faced a challenge converting the original photos to a paper version because of all the plastic add-on's to the original tin building. B.J. had to erase them out of the finished artwork and design a separate loading dock. I had run out of time to complete the entire project and was only able to build the warehouse for today's post. You can tell I rushed a little - a big no-no for any project, as my loading dock didn't go on straight, but when placed on base, the discrepancy can be camouflaged by placing crates next to it. The finished building measures 7 1/8" (18.1cm) L x 3 1/4" (8.3cm) W x 2 15/16" (7.5cm) H. B.J.'s project includes an REA delivery truck, a bunch of crates, and people for a complete setting! Here's photos of the completed Warehouse. Total build time was less than 1 hour. Enjoy!

 A size comparison - the car shown below is the type of car included with the original Marx tin-litho West Side Warehouse.

Here we have a couple of Marx 45mm figures standing on the dock.

Marx West Side Warehouse

The television series "The Untouchables" first aired in 1959 and chronicled the adventures of FBI agent Eliot Ness (played by Robert Stack) in his quest to defeat organized crime during the Great Depression. The show  was a huge success, until protests against the rampant violence shown in the series caused producers to water down the scripts. It was the violence which made the show popular and the result of the diluted scripts caused the show's popularity to plummet leading to its cancellation in 1963. Marx, always ready to take advantage of a hit television series, offered it's licensed 'Untouchables' playset in 1961. The set was unusual in that it included two tin-litho buildings. Most Marx playsets only included one building. The 'Revolutionary War' playset had two cabins but they were identical whereas the 'Untouchables' set had two distinctly different buildings -a streetfront, and the West Side Warehouse featured today on Toys & Stuff. 

The warehouse is one of Marx's 'shoebox' style buildings fleshed out with plastic accouterments. It's not unusual for the plastic parts to be missing from this building and those you see in the photos are reproductions. Some years back I had purchased the repos in the hope that one day a Warehouse would come my way, and sure enough, about two-or-so years ago I was able to purchase one - and of course it was missing the plastic pieces. Originally, the playset came with two Rolls Royce tin-litho friction-motored cars by Marx's Linemar division and in the last photo I've shown two of these cars along with a Linemar Cadillac. The figures included in the set were 45mm. Even without the gangster theme, this building would look terrific on an O-gauge tinplate layout. Enjoy!

 All the cars have issues, The car on the left is missing two hubcaps, the car in the middle has been repainted, and the car on the right is missing its windshield. However, they still look great and I'm glad to have them.