Standpipe model lands new home at BIA

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BANGOR – Three brothers who created a miniature version of what has been called the crown of the Queen City – the 1897 Thomas Hill Standpipe – were awarded keys to the city on Wednesday.

The 5-foot-tall scale model standpipe was unveiled at Bangor International Airport with Gov. John Baldacci, Bangor city councilors, other city, airport and Bangor Water District officials, and friends and family of the brothers on hand.

After a proclamation was read to honor the six-year project, completed by brothers Warren Young, Bill Tuck and Dick Tuck, the model was placed on permanent display in BIA’s domestic arrivals terminal.

City Councilor Gerry Palmer then surprised the three brothers with individual keys to the city.

“This is something we do not do very often,” he said. Since the city’s 1834 incorporation, Palmer said, three brothers have never been honored with city keys.

The project began in October 2000.

It was nothing more than a reason for the siblings to get together on weekends, Dick Tuck said.

“I have super brothers. Everybody knows that,” he said. “This is a super surprise. This is something we didn’t expect.”

The model was completed in July 2006 when Young was 82, Bill Tuck, 74, and Dick Tuck, 65.

Young and Bill Tuck are Bangor residents; Dick Tuck lives in Eddington.

After searching through tons of dusty city records for standpipe blueprints, to no avail, the three decided to break out the measuring tape.

Each item on the original standpipe, from the support balusters to the trimming, was measured, and each measurement is documented in a 1-inch-thick book of hand-drawn schematics, designs and historical photos and facts, which the brothers can cite from memory.

The airport is the perfect locale for the miniature, which was built at a half-inch-to-1-foot scale of the original.

“We’ve had pilots tell us this is the first place they see [during] the daytime and at night – the lights in the standpipe,” Bill Tuck said.

“There are half a million visitors that come and go” through BIA, and “when they fly in they’ll see the real one and when they land they’ll see” the miniature, he said.

When flying into Bangor, Palmer said, “I know that I’m home. The standpipe is the crown of the Queen City of the East and the lights are the jewels of that crown.”

When the navy blue covering was pulled off by the brothers and Baldacci, the governor was surprised by the detail of the model.

“Holy cow – look at that,” he said. “It’s wonderful. That’s terrific, you guys.”

Donated 100-year-old wood, dredged from the bottom of the Penobscot River by a friend, was used to create the 57,000 wooden shingles that cover the miniature, which has a 12-foot circumference.

The individual shingles are as small as a fingernail on a pinky finger and were placed on one at a time – all 122 rows.

The replica has 384 hand-formed and hand-sanded cement blocks, used to create the water tower’s rock base, and 196 balusters that create the tower’s crown. The roof shingles, which total in the thousands, were created using 25 sheets of emery cloth.

To create the tower’s 296 individual lights, 450 feet of fiber-optic wire was used, Dick Tuck said.

Creating to-scale lighting for the miniature would have been impossible without the fiber optics, he said.

Two small light bulbs in the model’s center illuminate the model.

The sign that is mounted on a rock at the base of the tower was created with the help of a friend who took a photo of the sign, downloaded it to a computer and printed a scale version that was glued to a small rock. And three plastic figures, which are also to scale, are positioned around the minitower to give people a reference.

“We had a wonderful time,” Bill Tuck said.

The brothers are in the planning stage of building a scale model of the Bangor’s since-demolished Union Station. It will be based on historical photos since they haven’t been able to find building plans, Young said.

“We had no idea how long this one would take and we have no idea how long that will take us,” he said.