Joe Macken’s Miniature New York City Goes On Display
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For more than two decades, Joe Macken spent every spare minute building a miniature version of New York City in his basement. The 63-year-old truck driver's handmade model is now on public display at the Museum of the City of New York.
Macken became interested in city models as a child after seeing the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum. The massive, 9,335-square-foot (125 m2), model was originally created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It was built by more than one hundred architects over the course of three years.
Decades later, Macken created a miniature model of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, an iconic skyscraper in Manhattan. What started as one building grew into a much larger vision. Soon, he was recreating every building, bridge, stadium, and street across all of New York City’s five main sections, or boroughs. The nearly million structures were all made using simple materials like balsa wood, cardboard, glue, and paint.
The finished model stretches 50 by 27 feet (15 m by 8 m) and covers about 1,350 square feet. It is arranged in 320 sections, each representing a square mile of the city. Macken estimates the project cost between $20,000 and $40,000.
Macken never planned for the public to see his work. That changed when his daughter encouraged him to post videos of the project on TikTok. The clips drew millions of views and caught the attention of the Museum of the City of New York.
They invited him to exhibit the model in a show titled He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model. The exhibit runs through August 31, 2026. After that, Macken plans to bring the model home and continue expanding it. His next goal is to add parts of New Jersey and Connecticut.
"It'll never be finished, ever," Macken says.
Resources: theguardian.com, CNN.com, mcny.org
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41 Comments
ilovehenrydsaf15 daysthe reason it took him 22 years to make it is because he didn't knew what it looked like to begin with. so he spended most of the time driving around new York city.
super59 daysfrom above it looked like a satellite image!- tivykucyveme9 daysCool
- vyjuwuzojeju11 daysSICK LOVE IT
- vyjuwuzojeju11 daysso cool love it
- vavilugyjysi12 dayscoooool love it
otterlover215 daysI say do Houston
sashaslays16 daysdo the whole country- chicago-kid12316 daysAlso, DO CHICAGO NEXT!!
- chicago-kid12316 daysI couldn't stay at it for thay long!!
