New York<\/a>, which now houses the project that spiraled into Macken\u2019s life\u2019s work.<\/p>\nAfter the accidental bridge demolition, Macken focused on another New York landmark. He carved a mini replica of 30 Rock, the art deco skyscraper and centerpiece of Rockefeller Center. That went well, so he started adding on, using wood to render the surrounding Midtown neighborhood. His mini Midtown became mini Manhattan. Then, he decided to model all of New York\u2019s five boroughs, block by block.<\/p>\n
Joe Macken\u2019s miniature model of lower Manhattan. Photograph: David Lurvey\/Museum of the City of New York<\/p>\n
The result is a 50-by-27ft piece made of wood and cardboard, held together by glue and the sheer determination Macken needed to get it done. \u201cThis is all about consistency,\u201d Macken said. \u201cI just started cutting one little house at a time.\u201d It took him 10 years to cover Manhattan, and then another decade to get through the rest of New York.<\/p>\n
In the late 60s and early 70s, Macken watched the twin towers rise from his childhood bedroom window. He remembers seeing cranes hoist girders into the sky. \u201cIt was my favorite building,\u201d Macken said. So he put it in the model, which has replicas of both One World Trade Center, which opened in 2014, and the original towers. \u201cNo matter what, the [former] World Trade Center was going to be in there,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was just a personal thing I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before it arrived at the museum, Macken kept the model in a storage unit near his home. Macken, a former truck driver, stacks the boards into piles when transporting the piece. He tries to avoid another model bridge massacre by \u201cdriving slow\u201d. \u201cYou have a couple casualties here and there, but nothing that can\u2019t be fixed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The museum exhibits the model in a large, ground-floor gallery, arranged from due north to south. Manhattan, the borough used to getting all the attention, is dwarfed by the outer boroughs, reminding viewers that much of the city\u2019s magic occurs far away from tourist hubs. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot about how knowable and unknowable New York City is to all of us, whether we\u2019re from here or just have a mental picture of this place,\u201d said Elisabeth Sherman, MCNY\u2019s deputy director and chief curator. \u201cIt is both immediately resonant, and yet so hard to grasp. Joe did that in his own way, and now we all get to participate and appreciate it for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
A tiny boat floats near a miniature version of the Coney Island beachfront. Photograph: David Lurvey\/Museum of the City of New York<\/p>\n
There are binoculars placed on the outside edges of the model, so viewers can take a closer look at specific sections. People who live near landmarks can easily find their blocks \u2013 one museum employee pointed out their home on the edge of Brooklyn\u2019s Prospect Park. This reporter had a tougher time trying to find her street, located in a gridlocked Brooklyn neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Sherman said that when museum staff first saw the model, \u201cwe were all standing around squealing, \u2018Look, there\u2019s our museum!\u2019 \u2018There\u2019s the Met, there\u2019s the Guggenheim.\u2019 It\u2019s this great act of recognition, and then it\u2019s also witnessing [Macken\u2019s] creativity, how he made this complex architecture out of very humble materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherman first heard of Macken the way many others did: last summer, the project went viral on TikTok, when 8 million people \u2013 coincidentally, that\u2019s about the population of New York \u2013 turned into his delightfully lo-fi first video. In the clip, Macken stares directly at the camera, holding up downtown Manhattan, making sure to point out his beloved twin towers. It was not his deal \u2013 Macken said his daughter egged him on. \u201cI\u2019m totally clueless when it comes to that stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took me longer to download the app than it did to build this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2003, Joe Macken built a miniature model of a bridge out of popsicle sticks. He wanted it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-283957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}