EAST HARLEM — In 2004, Joe Macken was settled near Albany, but he missed New York City, having grown up in Middle Village, Queens. 

To ease his homesickness, Macken decided to make tiny replicas of iconic buildings from the Big Apple’s skyline. It was fun, so the truck driver kept on going during whatever free time he had, aside from when he was at work or raising his three children.  

Now, 22 years later, his hobby has morphed into a labor of love titled “He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model.” 

This model landscape, 50 by 27 feet, comprises 320 individual sections to account for all five boroughs. It is on display through Labor Day Weekend in the Dinan Miller Gallery of the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Ave. 

“This is like a third of my life,” Macken said on March 9 during an interview at the museum. “It’s a passion that I started 22 years ago, and I just couldn’t stop.” 

Macken said he had grown up playing with Lincoln Logs and Legos, but it wasn’t until he was in his 40s, after relocating to Clifton Park north of Albany, that he considered dabbling in “miniatures.” 

“I kind of missed the city,” he recalled. “And I knew I wasn’t going to be seeing it much anymore. But I had all this balsa wood. So, I figured, ‘Let me go down to the basement and just build one building.’ And I did.” 

His first was the RCA building — the iconic 70-story Art Deco structure at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, now called the Comcast Building, and the headquarters of NBC since 1933. 

“A couple of days later, I built another one, and I just kept building,” Macken said. “Then I realized how big it was getting. And I was getting better at it, faster. 

“It was the consistency of it, and the love of doing it, that made me finish it.” 

Macken said the model was displayed for the first time at a fair in upstate New York last September. His eldest child, daughter Erika, 22, helped him publicize it on social media, and interview requests from news organizations ensued. 

The team at the Museum of the City of New York also noticed and invited Macken to display the model in the Dinan Miller Gallery. He happily accepted, and he assembled it there in February, a task that took 14 hours, he said. 

Nearly one million structures are represented, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center, and major connectors such as the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Verrazzano bridges. 

Macken used history books, photos, and later satellite images to ensure accuracy.  

Observers can use binoculars tethered at the model’s edges to peer down on the Ferris wheel and boardwalk of Coney Island, Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, the jail complex at Rikers Island, the Hudson and East rivers, plus the New York Harbor. 

The only things out of place are the Twin Towers, lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Here, they retain their original spots, with the Freedom Tower alongside. Macken said it’s his way to honor their legacies and the lives lost in the attacks. 

Virtually every place of worship in Queens and Brooklyn, famously called the City of Churches, is also represented. 

Included is Macken’s home parish, St. Margaret Church, and its school, where he was educated in his old neighborhood, Middle Village. He graduated from Christ the King High School, also in Middle Village. 

“I remember actually building St. Margaret because there’s a parish center right next door to it that’s kind of new, and I wanted to make sure I got that in there,” Macken said. “I built my block, the park that’s across the street, and then the school five blocks away. 

“And I remember building my high school.” 

Macken has fond memories of his neighborhood, like his dad taking him to Mass every Sunday. He said his mother, who now lives on Long Island, regularly asks if he makes it to Mass, but he usually drives trucks on Sundays. 

He visited the old neighborhood on March 8, took photos of his old school, and entered the church where a 5 p.m. Mass was underway. 

“I sat in one of the pews,” he said. “And I was looking at my old church, and I was thinking, like, ‘wow.’ I grew up a Catholic, and I’m very happy and very proud of that.”  

Macken said he plans to build more model landscapes. Next stops: Westchester County and areas of Connecticut. 

WANT TO GO?
For more information about the exhibit, visit:
mcny.org/exhibition/he-built-city