Overview

The Museum of the City of New York presents “He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model,” an ongoing exhibition in the Dinan Miller Gallery celebrating a handmade architectural model of New York City constructed over 21 years by Queens-born artist Joe Macken. This is the first time the model has been presented to the public in New York City itself, the subject and muse behind the entire project.

The exhibition is a rare instance of an architectural and artistic object being shown in the city it depicts, creating a direct dialogue between the model and the lived urban reality visible just outside the museum’s walls. Its placement alongside MCNY’s permanent exhibitions “New York at Its Core” and “Timescapes” positions Macken’s work within a broader institutional narrative about how the city has grown, changed, and been imagined across time.

Focus

Joe Macken began the model in 2004 at his home in Middle Village, Queens, later continuing in Clifton Park, New York. Working entirely by hand using everyday materials including balsa wood, cardboard, and glue, he constructed a model spanning 50 by 27 feet, comprising over 340 individual sections. The model renders New York’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with a combination of precision, personal detail, and artistic imagination rather than strict documentary accuracy.

Macken started with 30 Rockefeller Plaza, infusing its familiar form with details that signal his personal artistic vision from the outset. Over two decades, the model expanded into a comprehensive portrait of the city at a scale that few individual artists have attempted. Its physical dimensions make it less a tabletop model and more an inhabitable environment: the installation in the Dinan Miller Gallery is designed to allow close inspection alongside appreciation of the full scale, with binoculars provided for visitors to examine individual buildings in detail. When weather permits, the North Terrace gives access to view the model’s north side.

An accompanying video in the gallery documents Macken’s hand-carving process, giving the exhibition an additional layer that connects the finished object to the years of labour and decision-making behind it.

Built entirely by hand using everyday materials, the model spans 50 by 27 feet and comprises over 340 individual sections. It renders the city’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with remarkable precision, character, and imagination.
Museum of the City of New York, Exhibition Description, 2026

Context within the Museum

The exhibition is displayed on the museum’s first floor, steps away from “New York at Its Core,” which explores four centuries of urban transformation through themes of density, diversity, money, and creativity, and “Timescapes,” which animates the city’s physical expansion over time. The museum frames the three presentations as a conversation: where “New York at Its Core” uses archival and material evidence and “Timescapes” uses moving image, Macken’s model offers a tactile, artistic interpretation of the built environment that brings the city’s past and present into a shared, immersive space.

Artist

Joe Macken is a self-taught artist born in Queens, New York. The model project, spanning from 2004 to 2025, represents a sustained commitment to a single work over more than two decades. It has been exhibited previously outside New York; this MCNY presentation marks its debut in the city that is its subject. Macken works in a tradition of outsider and folk art that intersects with architectural model-making, though his work operates outside professional architectural or planning practice entirely.

Audience

The exhibition is open to the general public and requires timed ticket purchase. Its subject matter and scale make it relevant to audiences spanning architecture and urban history enthusiasts, artists and craftspeople, educators and students, and general visitors with an interest in New York City. The provision of binoculars and an outdoor viewing option signal an installation designed to reward sustained, careful engagement rather than a quick pass-through.

Event Details