He Built This City
Joe Macken's Model
Ongoing
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He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model celebrates the extraordinary vision and dedication behind one of the most ambitious handmade representations of New York City ever created. For the first time in New York—Macken’s muse—the artist’s monumental model will be presented to the public at the Museum of the City of New York.
Queens-born artist Joe Macken began the project in 2004. Over the next 21 years, working first in Middle Village, Queens and later in Clifton Park, New York, he devoted himself to crafting a vast architectural portrait of the city he calls home. Built entirely by hand using everyday materials—including balsa wood, cardboard, and glue—the model spans 50 by 27 feet and comprises 320 individual sections. It renders the city’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with remarkable precision, character, and imagination. Macken started with the Comcast Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, infusing its familiar form with details that signal his personal artistic vision.
The model is on view in the Museum’s Dinan Miller Gallery, presented in an installation that balances close looking with an appreciation of the full scale of the model. In the gallery, we encourage you to use the provided binoculars to see the model in greater detail and to watch the video highlighting Macken's hand-carved buildings. Weather permitting, access to view the north side of the model will be available through the North Terrace.
Displayed on the Museum's first floor, He Built This City is steps away from the permanent exhibitions New York at Its Core and Timescapes. Together, these presentations create a dynamic conversation about the city’s evolution. While New York at Its Core explores four centuries of transformation through themes of density, diversity, money, and creativity, and Timescapes animates the city’s physical expansion, Macken’s sweeping handmade model offers a tactile, artistic interpretation of New York’s built environment—bringing the city’s past and present into a shared, immersive space.
He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model is made possible with lead support from Todd DeGarmo | STUDIOS Architecture. Thank you to sponsors Amazon, Matt and Marisa Brown, and RUDIN. Additional support provided by Meredith and Brian Feurtado, Robert A. and Elizabeth Rohn Jeffe, Leah Johnson, Cindy and Stephen Ketchum, Stanford G. and Sandra T. Ladner, Jennifer and Andrew Marrus, Jennifer Prosek, Lisa Roberts, Toby Milstein Schulman and Judah Schulman, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with New York City Council.
