A detailed scale model of New York City, titled \u201cHe Built This City,\u201d has been on display at the Museum of the City of New York since February. Painstakingly created by truck driver Joe Macken, who grew up in Queens, the model encompasses all five New York City boroughs, along with parts of New Jersey and Nassau County.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person who lives in New York, briefly or for decades, walks around with their own mental map of the city,” said Elisabeth Sherman, deputy director of the museum. \u201cJoe made his own mental map physical \u2026 faithful to the real geography of the city, yet imbued with personal touches that make it uniquely his own,\u201d said Sherman.<\/p>\n
Nearly 75,000 visitors have taken in the exhibit, which at 50 by\u00a027 feet pretty much fills the museum\u2019s Dinan Miller Gallery. Guests are offered binoculars so they can zero in on a building or a neighborhood, all painstakingly constructed by hand out of balsam wood, acrylic paint and glue \u2014 a lot of glue.<\/p>\n
In a viral TikTok video<\/a> (10 million views and counting), Macken, 63, said he based his project on his own childhood memories, growing up in Middle Village, where in the winter he could see the Manhattan skyline. That explains why the model has both the Twin Towers and the World Trade Center. \u201cThey\u2019re my favorite buildings,\u201d he said, explaining in a phone interview that he kept both in \u201cjust for me.\u201d He remembers watching the buildings during construction from his bedroom window. \u201cI\u2019d look at the World Trade Center every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Macken\u2019s inspiration came in part from the \u00a0Panorama of New York City\u00a0 built for the 1964 World Fair, which he saw at the Queens Museum while in grade school.<\/p>\n He started his project in 2004 with the RCA Building (now Comcast) in Rockefeller Center, a building he said he always found more interesting than that famous Christmas tree. It was so much fun, he said, he just kept going. He created around a million pieces, from landmark buildings and bridges to basic brownstones. It took him 22 years to finish \u2014 not that this project will ever be finished, he talks about building out parts of Westchester and Long Island out\u00a0to Plainview, where he lived for 20 years after he graduated from high school.<\/p>\n Macken is hopeful that visitors will find the installation meaningful. \u201cI want them to come out and look at it and just to know that one person built this whole city,\u201d said Macken in a video produced by the museum. \u201cI want them to enjoy it. It\u2019s another way of seeing New York that you can\u2019t see walking through the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave., New York, is open daily from\u00a010 a.m. to 5 p.m. (6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday). Admission costs\u00a0$23, $18 for seniors 65 and over, and $14 for\u00a0students. Visitors under 18 are admitted for\u00a0free. The museum can be reached at 212-534-1672 or\u00a0mcny.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n