sonicstarlight

I'll admit that I do try and stop by In-N-Out anytime I am on the west coast. It's probably for the best they don't have any chains around me, at least in terms of my health! Blogged on Brick Town Talk!

All these mods of the Green Grocer help validate my opinion that it is the best of the modulars. 16-studs, 18-studs, 32-studs - it always looks stunning! I think I'll leave mine alone, though.

I hope it's true - Jamie Berard already did a Town Hall for a temporary exhibit back before the Fire Brigade came out, so maybe he just hasn't been able to let it die.

Thanks Hinckley - I really appreciate all you do both on Eurobricks and Classic-Town! I'm certainly not one to turn down free publicity, but MetroiD blogged this a little while before (this thread was recently bumped up from the dead). I think my more recent townhouses have escaped the site if you want to swap - obviously no pressure.

Neither are especially interesting builds (heck, the four flags are about the only difference between the second and third floors of the GE), but I would say without hesitation to get the GE first. For one, as was stated by thewatchman, it just feels more like a modular - it's hard to put into words, but it makes a much bigger impact in a layout than the PS, and it isn't just the height. For another thing, it is always wise to get and older modular before a newer one while you still can for the standard retail price. It will be another year or so before the GE starts getting phased out more than likely, especially since the FB is still in stores, but you definitely don't want to wait until you can only get it on ebay or Bricklink.

I really don't want to sound rude, as Hinckley has a TON on his plate, but that index hasn't been updated in probably close to 3 years now. There have been dozens if not hundreds of great modulars posted on this board since that time that are not represented. Not to steer this off-topic, but I would also be interested if anyone has good references to CREATE building instructions. Some of the ones linked to by L@go look as good as the real thing, and I bet more people would try their hand at diagramming if they knew how to do it.

I keep coming back to this topic - really, really great work. I thought I would use my 100th post to let you know I blogged this on Brick Town Talk!

These are lovely! I personally stay away from yellows and bright greens in my stuff, but they look excellent in your street - very authentic to the source material.

These are really great! I think the Fire Brigade made the transition the best, but the Grand Emporium looks remarkably good considering it started as a corner building. The interiors are also very well done and you managed to fit in a lot of the original detailing without it feeling cramped. Like others have said, I couldn't bear to do this with my set of modulars, but honestly I wouldn't mind some of these mixed in with them.

Yeah, the price of these things are insane for what they are so I've yet to get any. That said, even though it is also overpriced, I will be getting the Robie House. Besides being a huge Frank Lloyd Wright fan, I lived literally across the street from it my first three years of college.

It's so tempting to apply even though I don't think I have a realistic chance at all (nor do I know how feasible it would be to move to Denmark). Still, no harm in trying. Thanks for the heads-up!

Like many people here, I've had mixed results. I order almost exclusively new bricks, but the few times I have gotten used they are usually ok. At this point I have about a half dozen preferred sellers where I know that their definitions of 'new' and 'used' are the same as mine so I try to stick to them when I can. You'll always get a few items here or there that are either wrong or more chewed up that you thought, but I can honestly say that after 40+ orders that I have never had a truly bad experience on the site.

Looks absolutely smashing! Your buildings work so well with one another, and finally seeing everything at once is great. I can't wait to see the actual photographs.

I did briefly consider this, but no matter which way I turned the theater I couldn't get everything to fit in plan. I still had to go 8 studs wider than usual just to get a screen and projector room to work, but I was able to keep it only one baseplate deep. I mentioned earlier that I once worked at a movie theater when I was younger - it was actually an Art Deco theater originally designed for stage performances before getting converted to a movie theater in the 1990s (I think that's when it happened). They kept a lot of the old elements, like the curtains and balcony in the largest theater, so I think I wanted my creation to have a bit of the same look. I actually work in Chelsea and used to live just north in Hell's Kitchen, so it's very possible the diner you are thinking of is one of the ones I used for inspiration.

Other than the 1x1 brick with a stud on 1 side, the cheese slope is far and away the best piece to have been introduced since I got my first Lego set in the early 1980s. They have a lot more uses than just covering up studs, too. I just ordered 300+ for the floor of my next creation, and they were integral in the facade of my movie theater. The fact they let you do things at 30 and 60 degree angles is also huge. There has never been a time when I've looked at a pile of Lego and thought I had too many cheese slopes.

Very nice modular! It's clear what the source material is, but it is very much your own creation.

Congrats! Hinckley definitely deserves having an extra hand around here, especially since he also seems to be running classic-town all by himself as of late.

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw a 5 high door in a set now that I think about it. It would be a shame if that part was the only reason they couldn't re-release the Cafe Corner in the future.

This is still easily in my top 3 modulars of all time, and I don't think I have seen anything as ambitious since! Simply beyond stunning.

B-OM-1E Hello all! I have just finished my second CC-Standard MOC. This creation is based off of the wonderful buildings in the SoHo/Cast Iron historic district in Manhattan, known for their simple details, muted colors, large windows, and street facade fire escapes. In many ways it was a reaction to the Grand Emporium, which would also like right at home in this neighborhood. The building itself uses only white, light bley, and dark bley, with a couple hints of black on the base and rear facade. All color is a result of the plants and decorations. Like the Grand Emporium, I have put a skylight on the roof. Keeping with the theme, the sidewalk has a flower on it. On the rear of the building, there is a small greenhouse on the ground floor with a balcony above. Detail of the greenhouse (apologies for the glare on some of these shots). Here is the first floor with the cash register, refrigerators, and entry to the greenhouse. The second floor features all the garden supplies a minifigure would need. There are hand trolleys, planters, shovels, brooms, a lawnmower (lifted from the Apple Tree House), insecticide, and of course garden gnomes. Third and final floor has even more flowers, taking advantage of the skylight overhead. Here is a shot of the florist with my previous building, the "Modular Market Village". I felt that creation was a little too dark so I wanted to make my new building much brighter. And finally, here it is with the official modulars. It is a bit tall, but I think still fits in quite nicely. More pictures can by found in my flickr gallery here. Questions and comments are extremely welcome. Thank you for looking! .

You are giving me a lot of ideas and inspiration! I think the facelift will end up being more ambitious than I originally bargained for. LegoDadRobb: I have never taken any WIP photos, but maybe I could make an exception with my courthouse. My work area is a wreck, and is literally a plank on the floor with bricks everywhere - all my extra bricks live in just 4 shoeboxes normally. Brooklyn real estate is not known for being especially spacious. I'll see if I can't take a few this weekend or something - my first Bricklink order should have arrived by then, too. Unfortunately, my computer completely died on me this morning, so I am currently forced to post from my PS3 (hence my inability to multiquote). It might be a little bit before I am back to 100% and can edit and upload images again.

Again, excellent feedback that is very appreciated! I don't know if you have any educational or professional exprerience in the field of architecture, but you speak about it very well (I admit that I had to look up transoms on Google). The laundromat is very dark, but I kind of like it. Besides trying to be faithful to the original set and using the windows in it, I think black and tan are a great combination and there are actually a lot of townhouses around where I am that feature predominently black elements. The horrible lighting in my photography makes it look worse than it is. This does bring up my greatest frustration when building modulars, thought - lack of colors for windows, frames, and doors. Those 1 x 2 x 3 windows in the bay windows only come in 6 colors, half of which are useless like red and dark purple. There are no light grey or drak grey square windows in production, period, which is mind-boggling to me. Other size windows at least come in reddish brown and tan, I guess. Doors that fit the 1 x 4 x 6 frames, the one size that look appropriate at this scale, are also in far to few colors, almost all primary colors in addition to white and black. To have dark green, dark red, reddish brown, dark tan, or dark blue doors would be heavenly. Ok, enough ranting...

Nice build! It's a bit of a combination between the modulars and classic town sets that found a nice balance between them. The pizza oven is probably my favorite detail - very authentic looking.

It's actually really funny - I am working on a courthouse using the parts from the bank in the Diagon Alley sets, and the photo you posted looks nearly identical to half-built model I have now down to the row of 4 ionic columns. I am actually going out of my way to make that build not look too much like the florist, and will do a more squared off pediment and a dome on the roof. I hear your comment about the color - I actually wanted to make this a tan building at first but since my first MOC was tan and the Grand Emporium had just been announced at the time, I thought I should give the color a break. I took apart the top of the florist and played around with the shape a bit, but I still haven't quite hit the right balance. I did make the pediment extend out another stud and now I have to add more detail underneath it. I'm also planning the swap out all the dark bley elements (window frames, fenders, etc) with white - as dull as the palette is, it really isn't monochromatic enough! Again, absolutely great comments and I really appreciate them - if I ever finally get something I think is an improvement over the original, I'll post a few photos in this thread.

Incredible build, and extremely faithful to the source material! I wish I had some good advice for the roof, but I don't. I do agree that it would look best to build out the larger section of the roof and let everything else bump into it. Can't wait to see the final!