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The city in these photographs was created by my son Joseph and I over the last year. Our fair city was named Milla De Cresa II in honor of the somewhat unflattering name given Boca Raton by units of the State and Federal Prosecutor's offices.
It replaces previous twin cities known as Milla De Cresa I and the People's Democratic Republic of Legovia. The Great War of '95 saw the utter destruction of Legovia and De Cresa I. The Treaty of Mom, signed shortly thereafter limited the square footage of future development of the city (previous urban sprawl had virtually covered the living room and had flowed into family and dining rooms as well). This necessitated the rezoning of the city to permit high-rise structures. As you can see from the photos many of the buildings are in the 30' to 40' range.
The current city occupies approximately 200 square feet of living room space. The new Wild West Area, under development is not shown. The Pirate Lair is not shown, nor included in the footage as yet as this area is undergoing negotiation to expand the provisions of the Treaty of Mom to include areas in the dining room.
The city itself is more or less a permanent feature of the living room. It undergoes constant urban renewal (property values are, after all, extremely high). It incorporates features and bricks from all Lego product lines. A review of the Key will show that we have tried to provide all necessary services and features that a good sized city should have. We have also used buildings made from the girder and panel construction sets to fill in holes in development. These have been replaced as bricks become available for true Lego buildings. This is somewhat difficult as each high rise construction requires approximately 2-4000 bricks to complete. We have never kept track of the number of bricks used, but we did fill up about 35 gallons worth of buckets with the debris from the War of '95.
Lego purists frequently decry the use of special pieces like BURPS but we were glad to see them come out. They are terrific for giving large buildings an Art Deco look.
Our newest area is the trailer park, near the airport and nuclear energy plant, down the street from the prison and on the 'other' side of the railroad tracks. We have given great care to see that Lego people have places to live and work in our city.
We have also incorporated 1/43 scale metal cars and trucks to give our city a very urban look, complete with heavy traffic! We also use model railroad trees for a more realistic look to landscape. We use the Lego trees and flowers as well but they don't look quite right with the downtown area. We found fruits and vegetables for our open market stand in the doll house sections of various local hobby shops. It looks really great from a short distance and even better close up.
The freight train service is the old battery powered set. The monorail is from one or two of the space sets from some years back. We plan on expanding the monorail to serve all areas of the city but are currently stymied by a lack of straight pieces to connect to the commercial district.
Any suggestions for new buildings would be appreciated and can be sent to WSwan@ix.netcom.com.
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Milla de Cresa II text and photos © 1996 William Swan.
Text and background graphics © 1995 Zucaro Internet Publishing. Pause Magazine and the Pause logo are trademarks of Zucaro Internet Publishing. All rights reserved.
