Discussion
A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Making This Astonishing Scale Model of Every Single Building in New York City
hermitcrab: Brilliant. Stay weird, humans.
tombert: 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.
contubernio: Why is it relevant what he does for a living? It's his passion and hobby that is interesting.
tejohnso: 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.
Nevermark: 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.
philipallstar: > “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.
avidruntime: co-opted? The last paragraph of the article suggests this was quite literally the artist's goal:> “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.Its not like they broke into his shop and shared his model with the world before he could, it is currently an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.
philipallstar: Unless the person quite literally lives in that museum, I don't think "quite literally" is in any way accurate.> Its not like they broke into his shop and shared his model with the world before he could, it is currently an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.I'm not saying they did. I'm saying what they said was a load of rubbish.
drakythe: 20 * 365.25 = 7305 days. Assuming their "near a million buildings" number tracks to somewhere around 950,000, he would have had to build 130 "structures" a day on average.This is all round and not precise numbers, considering he had to have days where he couldn't build, I'm guessing on the number of structures, and he started in 2004 (22 years ago), accuracy is not possible. But still, even if we fudged it down to 100 structures a day: This is BONKERS.The man has a prodigious skill at building simple models and painting them. I am incredibly impressed. And I am curious if he did it all alone or if he ever had help from friends/family, even just simple cutting of the balsa wood into simple templated shapes for him to later construct. (To be clear, even if he had help it takes nothing away from how impressive this is)
drakythe: > I'm not saying they did. I'm saying what they said was a load of rubbish.I disagree. Employees often take some form of "ownership" over their buildings, especially in long term and public education facing facilities like museums. It isn't difficult to understand why they said "there is our museum". Human language connotes ideas as often as it does specifics, and there is nothing rubbish about that.
bigwheels: 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
Carrok: "We overestimate what we can achieve in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a year."
esafak: Your sibling post estimated it pretty well :)
