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A truck driver’s hand-built model of NYC with 800,000 structures is on display at the Museum of the City of New York

Queens truck driver Joe Macken's hand-built balsa wood scale model of all five boroughs, spanning more than 800,000 structures built over 20 years, is on display at the Museum of the City of New York through October 12.

Joe Macken's 50-foot model of NYC on display at the Museum of the City of New York, file photo.

A truck driver’s hand-built model of NYC with 800,000 structures is on display at the Museum of the City of New York

Queens truck driver Joe Macken's hand-built balsa wood scale model of all five boroughs, spanning more than 800,000 structures built over 20 years, is on display at the Museum of the City of New York through October 12.

A truck driver’s hand-built model of NYC with 800,000 structures is on display at the Museum of the City of New York
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A scale model of New York City with more than 800,000 structures, most of them carved from balsa wood by Queens truck driver Joe Macken over more than 20 years, fills the first-floor gallery of the Museum of the City of New York in the exhibit “He Built This City,” which runs through October 12, according to The Associated Press.

The model reproduces all five boroughs plus parts of New Jersey and suburban Long Island in street-level detail, according to The Associated Press. It runs across more than 300 large foam boards fit together like puzzle pieces. The whole thing is 50 feet long, with each inch standing in for roughly 160 feet of the real city. Everything from Manhattan’s skyscrapers to single-family homes in Queens is there, along with the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The museum reached out to Macken after his daughter’s TikTok clips of the basement build racked up more than 10 million views in a single week, the AP reported. The exhibit opened in February along Manhattan’s museum row near Central Park.

“I never really thought about finishing it because I had so much fun…

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Filed underHe Built This City / Joe Macken / Panorama of the City of New York

Bushwick Daily Culture Desk. Arts, music, entertainment, and people coverage produced by the Bushwick Daily newsroom.

Produced by Bushwick Daily Culture Desk

Arts, music, entertainment, and people coverage produced by the Bushwick Daily newsroom.

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