[HN Gopher] A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model o...
___________________________________________________________________
A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every
building in NYC
Author : 1659447091
Score : 210 points
Date : 2026-04-06 05:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| tombert wrote:
| 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.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Brilliant. Stay weird, humans.
| llmslave wrote:
| We need people like this around
| contubernio wrote:
| Why is it relevant what he does for a living? It's his passion
| and hobby that is interesting.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Why is it relevant...
|
| I'd say the point is "An Ordinary Guy did X". Vs. an
| engineering genius, or somebody with deep pockets, or a
| Hollywood special effects model builder, or 3D printer junkie,
| or whatever.
| josfredo wrote:
| He is with certainty not ordinary, precisely because of the
| feat. So a "an ordinary guy did x" statement would be false.
| bell-cot wrote:
| The point is that he came to the table with "ordinary"
| talents, equipment, skills, financial resources, etc.
|
| That he had to get extremely focused on the task, and
| devote years to it, is pretty well spelled out in the
| article's title.
| gremlinunderway wrote:
| Jesus christ this is pedantic. You do understand that not
| all statements can be universally distilled to true or
| false right? That there's nuance and opinion here right?
| billfor wrote:
| Also for comparison:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_of_the_City_of_New_Yo...
| drakythe wrote:
| 1:1,200 scale vs 1:2,400 scale, or 9,335 square feet vs 1350
| square feet.
|
| Both are absolutely incredible. I find the growth in size
| numbers difficult to really comprehend even though the scale
| difference is an "easy" * 2. I wish I wasn't so so bad at
| visualizing things.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > "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 wrote:
| 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.
| krustyburger wrote:
| Nor is it nonsense to acknowledge how cool it is to recognize
| your own building or that he was able to accomplish the
| project without expensive materials. Spew is also quite the
| verb to use. What an all-around unpleasant comment.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > co-opted? The last paragraph of the article suggests this
| was quite literally the artist's goal:
|
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| Nevermark wrote:
| 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.
| tejohnso wrote:
| 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.
| Carrok wrote:
| "We overestimate what we can achieve in a day, and
| underestimate what we can achieve in a year."
| esafak wrote:
| Your sibling post estimated it pretty well :)
| drakythe wrote:
| 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)
| bigwheels wrote:
| 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
| mckn1ght wrote:
| 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?
| lkm0 wrote:
| 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
| layman51 wrote:
| 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.
| wincy wrote:
| A little off topic, but any time I see that word, it reminds me
| of the first time I read the word "synechdoche", I wanted to
| know how to pronounce it and watched a very helpful YouTube
| video [0] three times before realizing someone had pulled a
| very funny prank from an earlier, less serious time on YouTube.
| I laughed and laughed.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/v-n1vGeVIXo
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| 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.
| PhilippGille wrote:
| If you are interested in scale models of New York, there's a 1:1
| scale model in Minecraft: https://youtu.be/ZouSJWXFBPk
| bigweeble wrote:
| Whoa. I admire the time and dedication to both models. However,
| I can't help but LOVE the minecraft model since it will live
| on. Now we just need to 3D print the minecraft model :D
| rkuska wrote:
| There is a miniature of Prague from around 1830 by Antonin
| Langweil. He dedicated his all free time to finish it in a hope
| of making money for his daughters. Langweil never found a
| benefactor for his work and he died poor. Pretty tragic story.
|
| https://www.muzeumprahy.cz/en/visit-langweils-model-of-pragu...
| omnimus wrote:
| Unfortunately the museum itself is pretty lame. I don't
| recommend.
| mcjiggerlog wrote:
| There's one of Madrid that also dates to 1830 that is insanely
| impressive, too:
|
| https://www.madrid.es/UnidadesDescentralizadas/UDCMedios/not...
| AgentMatt wrote:
| His last name sounds very close to the German word for boredom
| (Langeweile), that's kind of funny...
| c7b wrote:
| Awe-inspring. But one thing I don't get: he says he wants every
| building to be included, but the buildings in NYC are anything
| but permanent. Did he pick a particular timestamp for everything,
| or is it a mosaic of different epochs? Keeping the model up to
| date would be even more insane.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > he wants every building to be included, but the buildings in
| NYC are anything but permanent
|
| I think he took creative liberties there. The Twin Towers and
| One World Trade Center are included; he started the project in
| ~2004
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-04-07 23:00 UTC)