A truck driver built a model of NYC with over 800,000 structures for fun. Now it's a museum exhibit

NEW YORK (AP) — For more than two decades, truck driver Joe Macken spent his free time building a massive scale model of his native New York City out of balsa wood and foam board.

When he finished, his daughter convinced him to show off the sprawling basement creation — encompassing over 800,000 structures — on TikTok. The video clips almost immediately went viral.

Now Macken’s model is on display at the Museum of the City of New York, which reached out to him after seeing his TikTok videos gain more than 10 million views in one week. “He Built This City,” as the exhibit is called, opened in February along Manhattan's museum row near Central Park. It runs through Oct. 12.

“I never really thought about finishing it because I had so much fun building it,” he said on a recent visit to the exhibit.

The museum's chief curator, Elisabeth Sherman, said the model is a rare piece that appeals to both social media followers and traditional museum goers.

“I think people always want to get their arms around this whole city, this city that is impossible to know, impossible to grasp, and this is a way to see it from a bird’s-eye view,” she said. “We rarely have anything these days that reaches everyone in that way. We love that kind of energy it brings.”

All five boroughs and parts of New Jersey and suburban Long Island are laid out in street-level detail across more than 300 large foam boards, interconnected like puzzle pieces. The entire model is 50 feet long (15 meters) and nearly 30 feet (9 meters) wide, with each inch on the model representing about 160 feet (49 meters).

The more than 800,000 structures are mostly made out of light balsa wood, from Manhattan’s towering skyscrapers to the humble single-family homes in Queens and landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Macken says the inspiration for the model goes back to an elementary school trip to the Queens Museum to see the Panorama of the City of New York, the famed scale model built for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair, complete with an overhead, helicopter-style gondola ride.

But it wasn’t until he was in his 40s that the Queens native actually set out to make it. At the time, Macken and his young family had just moved north, from Long Island to the Albany area in upstate New York.

“I think, subconsciously, I might have missed New York,” he said.

Using basic materials found at hobby shops, Macken started with the Rockefeller Center and its iconic main tower, “30 Rock.”

From there, he built out Midtown Manhattan, a process that took about a decade. The Empire State Building and its ornate Art Deco spire proved to be the most challenging part.

“I wanted to make it perfect,” Macken said. “People are gonna be looking at it.”

Macken has no background in model building, architecture or design. He jokes that the closest experience he had was building Legos and Lincoln Logs as a kid. But as he worked, Macken became faster and more efficient.

“I wish I would have done it 20 years earlier, knowing that I would have enjoyed it so much,” he said. “I can build one of the buildings in my sleep right now where it took me hours when I first started.”

Macken says nearly all his free time was spent on the model. He’d bring his materials on family trips to the New Jersey shore in the summer and during lulls driving a bus on weekends.

“It was just something that I couldn’t stop doing,” he said.

As the model neared completion, it became all-consuming, Macken said.

“Before bed, I’d be so tired sometimes, and I wind up being there for four hours, falling asleep at the table,” he said. “It got bad. It was an obsession. It still is.”

The model isn’t an exact snapshot of the modern metropolis. Out in miniature Queens, Macken recreated his favorite childhood diner, not the modern high rise that now stands there. He also kept the old Kosciuszko Bridge that connects Brooklyn and Queens, even though it was demolished in 2017 and replaced by a new span.

And in lower Manhattan, the old twin towers of the World Trade Center still stand sentry in Macken’s miniature Gotham, albeit alongside One World Trade Center and the other gleaming skyscrapers constructed after the 2001 terror attacks.

“I kept a lot of my own parts of the city,” Macken said. “Just for me.”

On a recent weekday morning, a steady stream of visitors ambled into the first floor gallery. They strode up to the edge of the raised platform, seeking out a familiar landmark or an old neighborhood.

Some took up the pairs of binoculars provided for better viewing, while most simply squinted and pointed into the distance.

Jonathan Skolnik positioned himself at the corner of the model nearest lower Manhattan and began tracing his family’s history across the five boroughs as his son, Tosha, listened intently.

Jonathan pointed out his father’s first address in America, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, near the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. The neighborhood where he was born in Queens. The cemetery where many family members were buried.

“I’m trying to do it all from memory,” the Washington, D.C. area resident said. “I don’t have it all exact.”

After a lifetime toiling away in anonymity, Macken hopes to display the model elsewhere when the museum exhibit ends on Columbus Day.

In the meantime, he’s looking forward to adding more than 50 new buildings and expanding the model into New Jersey and Long Island.

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

A visitor to the Museum of the City of New York looks over a model of New York City made by Joe Macken in New York, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Central Park and the tall buildings of midtown Manhattan are seen on a large model of the New York City, made by Joe Macken, at the Museum of the City of New York in New York, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The Statue of Liberty is seen on a large model of the New York City, made by Joe Macken, at the Museum of the City of New York in New York, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

In this image taken with a smartphone=, truck driver Joe Macken poses in front of his scale model of New York City, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)

Lower Manhattan, featuring both the One World Trade and the Twin Towers, is seen on a large model of the New York City, made by Joe Macken, at the Museum of the City of New York in New York, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Russians on Friday began three days of voting in the country’s first wartime parliamentary election, which features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance.

Authorities spread the election over the weekend, ending Sunday, in a bid to boost turnout among the 111 million eligible voters, and they even allowed electronic balloting.

The Kremlin wants the parliamentary election — the first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — to underline public support for the war and give a veneer of legitimacy to its action. It has sought to avoid any political risks by stamping out even the slightest sign of dissent.

“Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland,” President Vladimir Putin told the nation before the vote.

Russian state news agencies reported that Putin voted online Friday and released a video of him in front of a computer screen.

The main Kremlin party, United Russia, is all but assured to retain its overwhelming control of the lower house, the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with the government on all key issues also are expected to retain their presence.

Voters cast two separate ballots, filling half of the Duma’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest are contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.

Russians interviewed by The Associated Press expressed different expectations from the election.

Dmitry Kirillin in Moscow said earlier this week that he would like “to see some changes. To see a different party” at the helm. But Muscovite Alexander Vertukhin believed “what United Russia and the communists are doing is quite sufficient; their platforms cover everything.”

Speaking at a Moscow polling station Friday, pensioner Galina Vavilova said she thought ending the war in Ukraine “is the main thing, of course.”

“That is the most important thing right now. Everyone wants peace, that’s what it comes down to. So that our guys are safe and sound,” she said.

Another pensioner, Lyudmila Kalinina, wished for life “to stabilize for the better” and for “an end to the big divide between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, because, after all, many people don't live a very sweet life.”

Vladimir Chubarev, a 72-year-old professor, expressed hope “for all the important initiatives our government is undertaking to succeed,” adding: “And, of course, for victory.”

The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races. Additionally, some anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.

The election follows a summer of Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon also were attacked. The damage has exacerbated problems for the Russian economy and brought the war home for millions.

In Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, polling stations were briefly closed because of a threat of a drone attack, local officials said. One polling station in the Krasnodar region had to be set up in a different venue after a drone shattered windows there, said Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova.

For the first time, the parliamentary election includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn't fully control. Voting also is taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Voters dropped their ballots in a box at one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.

In the Russian-held Luhansk region, 14 polling stations were using backup power sources after Ukrainian drones damaged electrical lines, Pamfilova said.

Separately, Russian officials said Ukrainian attacks earlier this week killed a polling station chief and wounded another in the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the accusation.

Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments and international organizations not to recognize the election, warning Ukrainians that taking part in organizing the balloting could carry criminal liability.

European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand also called the voting in Russian-held regions “illegal” and said the European Union condemns it.

“These so-called elections represent yet another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognize either the holding of these, so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results," he said.

Wigand said the way the elections are held “underscores the continued and deepening erosion of democracy in Russia," and that the Kremlin “deprives voters in Russia of a genuine choice about the future of their country.”

He also noted that Russia decided not to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, disregarding its commitments. He vowed the EU will continue to support Russian civil society organizations, human rights groups and independent media.

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Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.

Voters cast ballots at a polling station during Russia's parliamentary election, in the Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin votes online in the parliamentary election, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Voters leave voting booths during the parliamentary election in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, with an image of Soviet novelist Valentin Pikul on the wall. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Voters use an electronic voting system in the parliamentary election in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

A voter holds her ballot prior to voting in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Russia's Security Council Deputy Chairman and the head of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev casts a ballot in the parliamentary election in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Ekaterina Shtukina, Sputnik, Pool Photo via AP)

A voter casts a ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

Voters cast their ballot for the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

A woman leaves a voting booth to cast her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

A woman walks to cast her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)

A woman casts her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)