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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31 Comments
marzia7 daysThat is super cool! I would never have the patience for that. lol👌
renecosefeha7 dayscooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- renecosefeha7 daysSick
bipymizinatu7 daysomg. ok so is this a coincidence? so we just got back from ela class and we were watching "Wonderstruck", since we finished the book we were watching the movie. At kind of the end (not really maybe like 10 min before ending or 5?) it was rose showing ben the new york miniture city. and i check mackin via and what do i see? , "Today, posted Joe Macken's Miniature New York City Goes on Display". and omg... i crashed out bc i thought it was some random coincidence.
mexican_crazy237 daysvery nice
dog887 daysI do not think I could even work 2 years on this project not alone 20 years.- dog887 daysThat is so cool !
zzzay7 daysThis seems super cool! I rlly want to see it
amethystfromgd7 daysimagine how much time it took for him to build that!- amethystfromgd7 daysThe fact it might not ever be finished is crazy aswell
