{"id":134864,"date":"2026-02-16T04:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134864\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T04:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:59:10","slug":"man-single-handedly-recreates-new-york-city-out-of-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134864\/","title":{"rendered":"Man single-handedly recreates New York City out of wood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">NEW YORK (PIX11) \u2014 One man single-handedly recreated New York City\u2019s five boroughs and all that goes with them using a little paint, glue and a whole lot of balsa wood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Joe Macken, a 63-year-old upstate truck driver originally from Queens, made his own love letter to the city he once called home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/news\/local-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:More Local News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\"> More Local News <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI\u2019m crazy. It was just a passion,\u201d Macken said. \u201cI started back in 2004, just carving little pieces of wood and I loved it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Macken said he spent a decade building Manhattan in the basement of his home and more than 11 years on the other four boroughs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With more than 8 million followers on TikTok, Macken\u2019s work gained international attention over the summer. The Museum of the City of New York thought it would be a perfect fit for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cJoe had made it in 320 different sections, each square stacked one on top of each other in a storage unit. We had to bring it down to the city very carefully and we had to put it on a platform,\u201d museum CEO Jerry Gallagher said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The exhibit opened this weekend with crowds double their usual size, according to Gallagher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI just want people to see what you can accomplish if you just be consistent and have a passion for something,\u201d Macken said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He told PIX11 News that his next project may be all of New York State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (PIX11) \u2014 One man single-handedly recreated New York City\u2019s five boroughs and all that goes with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57333,55846,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-134864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-balsa-wood","9":"tag-joe-macken","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}