Joe Macken’s stunning new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York called “He Built This City” depicts more than 890,000 structures — parks, businesses, apartments and homes, factories, and more — in the city’s five boroughs. Each structure is built to scale, hand-sculpted out of balsa wood and delicately painted, creating a breathtaking aerial view of one of the world’s most recognizable cities.
This alone would be a feat for any architect or artist, except that Macken is neither. The 63-year-old Queens native is a truck driver whose fascination with buildings and landscapes started as a child after visiting the Panorama of the City of New York, the massive model that debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
His own model was created decades later, largely at night, in his basement, in sections, after long shifts driving his truck and evenings spent with his wife and children. It was only at the insistence of his daughter that the finished project saw the light of day, after she convinced him to post photos of completed sections on social media.
His work caught the eye of artists, architects and, eventually, museum curators, who recognized that this unassuming delivery man had created something that would wow the general public as well. The entire project is on display through December at the Museum of the City of New York.
Here & Now‘s Robin Young joined Macken there to talk about the project and his passion for the city he grew up in.
6 questions with Joe Macken
You worked full time. When did you have time to make the model, and where in the world did you store it?
“I was keeping this in a storage unit. I mean, piles, pieces all over the place. Like I would work all day, I’d come home. I would sit down, watch TV with my family, or do whatever. And then I’d go downstairs. I would just work on it sometimes for hours.
“Sometimes I’m dead tired, and I got to get up at [4 a.m.] the next morning. And one day I finished it, and my daughter found out that I finished it. She was like, ‘Why don’t you just put it on social media?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK.’ So, I put it on social media, just one little piece. And it just exploded. It got like 10 million views, and the museum found out, and I was able to set it up.”
Did you include every house and building in every borough?
“Yes. From Google Maps and Google satellites, about 890,000 total little houses and buildings… Right now, you’re looking at it from about 5,000 feet off the ground, flying into Kennedy Airport… And everything is to scale. Yeah, every inch is 160 feet.”
When did you start noticing buildings and skylines? We understand you used to climb out onto your parents’ roof in Queens?
“I did. I used to go into my parents’ closet. They used to have a ladder against the wall. And I used to push up the trap door that led to the roof. And I used to go up there and just hang out with my friends, look at the city. You can see the skyline from there. I used to walk all the way down to the end and all the way back. People must have heard me walking on their roofs.”
How are people reacting to your model, now that it’s on display at the Museum of the City of New York?
“I’ve talked to art architects, and they can’t believe this. They never seen anything like this before. My wife’s sister was a nurse, and she had all these tongue depressors in a garage. I always was interested in building stuff, and I never had the material to do it.
“So, I took all the sticks and I made a bridge out of it. It was a hybrid of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg [bridges]. It was beautiful. It got destroyed on a moving truck. I was really upset. So, I said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to get upset. I’ll build something better.’ So, I went to the hobby store and I bought balsa wood and I started building Manhattan. And I never stopped. I never stopped.”
You also had some inspiration from The Panorama of the City of New York, displayed first at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Tell us about that visit.
“We got in this little vehicle. It was almost like a tram or like a little train. And we went around the perimeter of this model, and we saw the Empire State Building, all the parks. And I was just like, my eyes were just plastered on this. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
“I remember I talked to my classmate who was sitting next to me. I said, ‘I’m going to build one of these myself one day.’ When I was that young, I was about seven. And I kept my promise. Yeah. It took 100 people three years to build [The Panorama of the City of New York.] And it took one person 22 years to build [my model].”
What’s your next project?
“I’m doing Westchester County, Long Island, New Jersey. It’s 50 [feet long] now. It’s going to be 90 feet long and it’s going to be 50 feet wide. Right now, it’s 30 feet wide. It’s going to have about 1.7 million total buildings when I’m done. I love everything about it. If something is difficult, I just, I look forward to it.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Karyn Miller-Medzon and Robin Young produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Miller-Medzon also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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