i absolutely love the sentiment from this closing sentence:

> “One of the reasons Joe is so insistent that every single building is here is because he would never want someone to come and see it and not be able to find where they live and see their story,” Sherman tells Artnet.

Previous related discussion:

Trucker built a scale model of NYC over 21 years https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45261877 - 18 comments, 6 months ago

A swiss architect did the same in the mid 19th century with Geneva, specifically to preserve an image of the city right before the entirety of the city walls were to be razed

pics: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Relief_Magnin

Looking at the level of detail, and the thoroughness, I wouldn't have expected it to even be possible to complete it in 20 years. How much time does this guy spend driving truck? Amazing accomplishment and display of dedication and creativity.

This is kind of timely for me because very recently I had heard of the film "Synecdoche, New York", but in this film, the scale model is more life-size.

Any way to know how many buildings were demolished and a newer one built in its place over that 20 year period? Wonder what he used for a reference. Is the model representative of a single moment in time, or is there some clock drift?

Brilliant. Stay weird, humans.

Also for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_of_the_City_of_New_Yo...

Why is it relevant what he does for a living? It's his passion and hobby that is interesting.

How long before we can build tiny controlled cars and little tiny "pole people" that wander around?

Micro-machines seem to be taking their time.

We need people like this around

Looks like you can buy tickets: https://35948.blackbaudhosting.com/35948/page.aspx?pid=196&t...

I should check it out, it would be fun to see my house recreated as a model.

I love projects like this; no delusions of trying to change the world, just doing it because the creator thinks it would be cool to do.

> “We were all standing around squealing, ‘Look, there’s our museum!’ ‘There’s the Met; there’s the Guggenheim,’” Sherman recalls. “It’s this great act of recognition, and then it’s also witnessing [Macken’s] creativity, how he made this complex architecture out of very humble materials.”

Blue collar, dedicated, skillful effort over decades immediately co-opted by nonsense-spewer.