Truck driver spent 21 years creating a massive model of New York City out of balsa wood: ‘It was quite the process'

New York Post

7 days ago

Is this NYC's next top model?
Joe Macken has spent the past 21 years painstakingly erecting an intricate 3D replica of New York City by hand — using nothing but balsa wood, Elmer's glue and a whole lot of ingenuity.
The finished product, unveiled recently in a viral TikTok video, features nearly a million buildings spanning all five boroughs — including the beleaguered Staten Island, and even parts of New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island.
'It was quite the process. I just kept building and building and building,' truck driver Macken, 63, told The Post of his sprawling pet project. 'I never thought in a million years I would ever get done with the whole, entire thing.'
@balsastyrofoam300
Miniature model of New York City, carved out of balsa wood,21 years to build, almost 1 million buildings, 50ft, long,30ft. wide. ♬ original sound – minninycity04
At 30 feet wide and 50 feet long, the diorama is so gargantuan that he keeps it in a storage unit near his house in Clifton Park, about 20 miles north of Albany.
It's not just the scale that boggles the mind.
9 'Every minute of spare time that I have, I just dedicate to doing that, and it just added up over the years,' said Macken.
Hans Pennink
The hyperrealistic homage is excruciatingly detailed, from Astoria's trademark row houses in Queens to the United Nations building and Central Park in Manhattan; the latter island took 12 years alone to create each skyscraper from scratch.
'If you're flying over Central Park and then you look [at] mine, it looks exactly the same,' the proud builder said.
Macken's magnum opus has caught fire online, with TikTok viewers calling the 3D cartographer a 'living legend' and imploring NYC cultural institutions to showcase his Big Apple tribute in an exhibit.
9 Macken keeps his Big Apple replica in a storage unit near Albany.
Hans Pennink
Among the more than 12,000 comments — one labeled his work 'insanely impressive' — YouTube even weighed in from its official TikTok account, writing, 'A million buildings!? A museum needs to display this asap.'
Not bad for a truck driver without any formal training in engineering or architecture.
'I knew it was my thing when I was doing it because, well, I was never into carpentry or anything like that,' Macken confessed to The Post. 'But I was into skylines.'
9 'I got better at it and more experienced, and I found faster ways to build it,' said Macken, shown in one of his social media posts.
Joe Macken
Macken, a Middle Village, Queens, native who moved upstate 20 years ago, told The Post that he began the project as a 'hobby' after getting inspired by seeing the Manhattan skyline out of his bedroom window. He also would watch old NYC documentaries featuring Rockefeller Center and iconic landmarks.
It wasn't until April 2004 that he started creating his masterpiece, constructing one building a night, starting with the RCA building, aka Rockefeller Center.
Before he knew it, he had 'built all' of 30 Rock, 'and then I started going uptown,' he said.
9 Macken shows off just a small segment of his mammoth city model.
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9 Macken said recreating Manhattan was especially difficult as he had to customize each skyscraper from scratch.
Hans Pennink
Just a year or two later, the whiddling wizard had 'built the whole Midtown [from] the Empire State Building, 34th Street, all the way up to 59th, all the way to the East River, and then to the Hudson.'
After completing Manhattan in 2016, the model citizen then moved on to the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and finally Staten Island.
The museum-quality craftsmanship is especially impressive since he used grammar school-grade materials from a local Michaels Art Supplies, opting for balsa wood after a friend told him that it's 'really light,' strong and 'easy to cut.'
9 'I can build a whole 30-by-20-inch section [with] 1,500 houses or 2,000 houses in maybe 12 to 15 hours,' said Macken. 'It used to take me weeks, like, 15, 20 years ago.'
Hans Pennink
He then used X-Acto knives for slicing structures down to size, Elmer's Glue for adhering them, and sandpaper and nail files for sanding while he colored the neighborhoods with acrylic paint using brush sets that cost $3.99.
'I don't need anything expensive to build this,' proclaimed Macken, who nonetheless estimated that he's shockingly spent between $20,000 and $40,000 on materials to date.
Thankfully, Macken said that as his part-time but all-consuming project progressed, so did his technique.
'I got better at it and more experienced, and I found faster ways to build it.'
He eventually went from meticulously constructing each building individually to mass-producing whole blocks by carving a row of houses out of 'the same piece of wood,' drastically saving time.
9 Macken's sprawling model — shown stacked up in a storage unit — also encompasses New Jersey and parts of Westchester. He even recreated Central Park and borough-connecting bridges.
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'I can build a whole 30-by-20-inch section [with] 1,500 houses or 2,000 houses in maybe 12 to 15 hours,' he said. 'It used to take me weeks, like, 15, 20 years ago.'
Some incredulous TikTok viewers calculated that his million-building city would've required him to construct 137 buildings per day over 21 years. But he said they didn't factor in his time-saving technique.
While the shortcut worked for the somewhat uniform outer borough dwellings — the Bronx took just two years, he told The Post — it didn't fly in Manhattan. Each skyscraper required special attention due to the diverse 'shapes and sizes,' he said.
'The Freedom Tower is tapered, so you have to sand that down and you have to cut,' said Macken, who populated his miniature Central Park with model trees from Hobby Lobby.
9 Macken claims to have spent between $20,000 and $40,000 on materials for the intricate model.
Hans Pennink
Composing the physical love letter to the Big Apple understandably required some juggling for a man with a wife, three kids, and two jobs: He delivers food and beverages during the week, while on the weekend, he drives luxury buses that chauffeur people to Yankees games and weddings.
'Sometimes I'd do all-nighters. I just build and build during any days off,' Macken said. 'Wake up early, I go right downstairs, and I work on it for about four hours on Saturday and Sunday morning, and I'm off Monday, so I do it then, also.
'Every minute of spare time that I have, I just dedicate to doing that, and it just added up over the years.'
9 Macken never set out to build the entire city.
Hans Pennink
Unfortunately, for now, Macken's pastime will remain just that.
Despite calls for it to go on display, he said the mini-city is far too colossal to be shown at a museum — for now, anyway.
'I just made it so big that it's very hard to find a place to actually set it up and transport it,' Macken lamented. 'It would be a three-day process.'
Until then, he plans to expand his creation and add other cities as well.
His next fun-size urban project?
Minneapolis, Minnesota — inspired, he said, by watching 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' as a kid.
But unlike sprawling NYC, the much smaller Midwestern city should 'only take about two years,' he quipped with a hint of New Yorker side-eye.