For years, I've been fascinated by the sight of the WMCA building in the middle of the swampy Meadowlands off the Jersey Turnpike. It stands alone on the edge of the road, while a small wooden bridge leads to the radio towers in the middle of the open water. I used to see it as a kid and had romanticized ideas of a lone DJ playing music late at night in the middle of nowhere. Recent bus trips to New York had rekindled my interest in the building. The actual building is only used for transmission. WMCA is currently a Christian radio station with a studio in NYC.
Meanwhile, I was talking with another PennLUG member about expanding the industrial waterfront section of our layout (which was also partially inspired by views from the Jersey Turnpike) and I had the idea of recreating the WMCA building in Lego. I based the model off a few photos I found online:
- http://www.j-hawkins.com/wmca.shtml
- http://www.fybush.com/sites/2005/site-050603.html
- http://www.fadingad.com/fadingadblog/?p=6432
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/138259902/
I built only one of the three radio towers the real station has. The coastline around the station is done in removable 8x16 modules while the building itself is on a plain 32x32 baseplate raised by bricks, so it could be reused elsewhere in a layout away from the waterfront. The roof is removable but I haven't done an interior yet. I might also do an alternate set of letters for the PennLUG layout, such as WPLG or WLGO.
Thanks to Nate Brill for some of the inspiration and Chris Edwards for the green water technique.
2 comments:
For decades the studios were in Manhattan until the station was sold to Salem Broadcasting. WMCA studios are now in Hasbrouck Heights (Bergen County) with co-owned WNYM-970.
UPDATE: In 2013 WMCA and WNYM's studios returned to Manhattan, near the World Trade Center at 111 Broadway.
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