America\u2019s next top model is now on full display.<\/p>\n
An upstate truck driver-turned-TikTok sensation<\/a> unveiled his gargantuan wooden model of New York City<\/a> at a new exhibition Monday in what serves as the replica\u2019s museum debut.<\/p>\n After amassing millions of views on TikTok at the behest of his Gen Z daughter, Joe Macken\u2019s passion project has landed its own museum show \u2014 dubbed \u201cHe Built This City: Joe Macken\u2019s Model\u201d \u2014 running at the Museum of the City of New York from Wednesday through the summer.<\/p>\n Upstate truck driver-turned-TikTok sensation Joe Macken unveiled his gargantuan balsa wood model of New York City at a new exhibition Monday in what serves as the replica\u2019s museum debut. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n After amassing millions of views on TikTok at the behest of Macken\u2019s Gen Z daughter, the truck driver\u2019s passion project has landed its own museum show. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a hobby that got out of control,\u201d Macken, 63, told The Post, noting the project, which he started in 2004, was inspired by a first grade trip to the Panorama miniature model of New York City at the Queens Museum.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m going to build one of these myself.\u2019 And when I was in my 40s, I started it \u2026 after watching a documentary about New York.\u201d<\/p>\n Macken started his wild vision with a wood-carved Rockefeller Center \u2013 and the project has since expanded to a whopping 50 feet with an estimated 800,000 skyscrapers, apartment buildings, houses, boats, bridges and more.<\/p>\n The Clifton Park, New York resident began by carving the 30 Rock building \u2013 with art deco architecture that captured his fascination during trips to visit the famed Christmas tree from a young age \u2013 from balsa wood, and eventually expanded to the entire Big Apple, all by using his own system to scale the project.<\/p>\n Macken used the cheap hardwood, Elmer\u2019s glue and Styrofoam to build out the replica, and relied on books, references and his own photography trips to Manhattan years before the advent of Google Maps imagery, he said.<\/p>\n The delivery worker eventually started using a home ruler to measure out a millimeter-to-10 feet scale before moving to Google references in the mid-2010s.<\/p>\n Macken relied on books, references and his own photography trips down to Manhattan years before Google Maps offered free satellite imagery, he said.\u00a0 James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n But some sections of the city \u2013 like Middle Village, Queens, where Macken grew up \u2013 didn\u2019t even require a guide, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery block I knew: building Queens was my favorite, because I know Queens like the back of my hand,\u201d Macken explained. <\/p>\n \u201cI tried to make it exactly the way the city actually looks \u2026 but it took me so long to build that I\u2019m sure it must have just led me to use my own imagination here and there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Macken told The Post he plans to build on his creation well after the exhibit wraps to create a 90-foot \u201csquare\u201d replica of the tri-state area, including Westchester and Nassau counties.<\/p>\n \u201cI figure it\u2019ll take me another 10 or 12 years,\u201d he said, adding he spends roughly two hours a day on it. \u201c[I\u2019ll be] very busy \u2026 but I don\u2019t think of it as work.\u00a0After I\u2019m done with everything at night, before I go to bed, I go down [to my basement].<\/p>\n \u201cIt just relaxes me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter I\u2019m done with everything at night, before I go to bed, I go down [to my basement],\u201d he added. \u201cIt just relaxes me.\u201d\u00a0 James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n The installation, however, is far from architecturally \u2013 or historically \u2013 accurate, museum curators said, with handwritten notes along the waterfront edges demarcating a New York City that is distinctly Macken\u2019s: from his grandmother\u2019s home in Breezy Point to a misspelling of the \u201cVerazanno\u201d Bridge connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be me if I did [correct the spelling],\u201d Macken chuckled.<\/p>\n \u201cThe normal thing people do is a New Year\u2019s resolution, and I\u2019m the guy who stops going to the gym. But not this. I just loved it so much, seeing the progress after a while.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the story of one person\u2019s dedication, perseverance, and persistence over 20-plus years,\u201d said Elisabeth Sherman, Robert A. and Elizabeth Rohn Jeffe deputy director and chief curator of the Museum of the City of New York.<\/p>\n The museum had reached out to Macken last summer after TikTok videos of his replica amassed millions of views, Sherman said.<\/p>\n Macken, however, was untraceable via phone records, and a museum staffer ended up reaching out to an upstate New York bar he was speaking at while showing his display at the Cobbleskill Fairgrounds near Albany.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a curator who comes from an art background, you talk about the \u2018hand of the artist:\u2019 that you can see the brushstrokes, you can see that he made it,\u201d Sherman said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so exact that it feels like a machine could have made it and I think that lets all of us in: It tells us that this is one person who is sharing his perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI used to wake up in the morning when I lived in Queens, I used to look out my bedroom window and just see the skyline,\u201d Macken said of the nod to the Twin Towers in his replica project. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n The piece also pays tribute to Macken\u2019s Middle Village upbringing with nods to the downtown Manhattan skyline he viewed from his own window as a boy \u2013 including the Twin Towers.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to make sure I kept the World Trade Centers there because those were the buildings closest to me. I used to wake up in the morning when I lived in Queens, I used to look out my bedroom window and just see the skyline,\u201d Macken added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow many kids grow up looking out the window and seeing the New York City skyline? So I\u2019m very proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t