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.
A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
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Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#12> “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.
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.
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#13Looking 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.
"We overestimate what we can achieve in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a year."
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#14> “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.
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 current…
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.
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#15Looking 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.
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)
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#16> “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.
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 current…
> 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.
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#17Also for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_of_the_City_of_New_Yo...
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.
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#18Looking 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.
"We overestimate what we can achieve in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a year."
Your sibling post estimated it pretty well :)
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#19Previous related discussion:
Trucker built a scale model of NYC over 21 years https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45261877 - 18 comments, 6 months ago
Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 current…
> 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 s…
> 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.