Joe Macken, a truck driver from New York, spent more than 20 years constructing a detailed scale model of his native city, which has recently become the focus of a museum exhibit in Manhattan. The model, built from balsa wood and foam board, features over 800,000 individual structures and covers all five boroughs of New York City, as well as parts of New Jersey and suburban Long Island.

Macken’s basement project garnered widespread attention after his daughter encouraged him to share videos of the model on TikTok. The clips quickly amassed over 10 million views within a week, prompting the Museum of the City of New York to invite Macken to display the creation. The exhibit, titled "He Built This City," opened in February along Manhattan’s museum row near Central Park and will run through October 12.

Macken, who has no formal background in architecture or design, began the project in his 40s after relocating with his family from Long Island to upstate New York. He attributes the inspiration to a childhood field trip to the Queens Museum, where he saw the Panorama of the City of New York, a famed scale model built for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair.

The model measures approximately 15 meters in length and nearly 9 meters in width, with a scale where one inch represents about 50 meters. It showcases buildings ranging from Manhattan’s iconic skyscrapers, such as Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building, to modest homes in Queens, along with landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Notably, Macken included features reflecting his personal memories, such as a childhood diner in Queens and the old Kosciuszko Bridge, which was demolished in 2017.

Elisabeth Sherman, chief curator at the museum, highlighted the model’s unique appeal, noting that it offers a rare opportunity to view the entire city from a bird’s-eye perspective, attracting both social media followers and traditional museum visitors.

Visitors to the exhibit often use binoculars provided by the museum or simply study the model to locate familiar places. Some, like Jonathan Skolnik from the Washington, DC, area, use it to trace family histories through the city’s neighborhoods.

As the exhibit approaches its closing date on Columbus Day, Macken plans to continue expanding the model with more structures, extending into New Jersey and Long Island. He also hopes to display the project at additional venues in the future.