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A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

#44

Post by cortesoft »

layman51 wrote: post #24

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.

I was wondering if the scale model would have a smaller scale model at the location of the original model...

Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

#45

Post by noisy_boy »

drakythe wrote: post #15
tejohnso wrote: post #11

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.

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 1…

Maybe after a few thousand buildings, he built specialized tools to quickly build the templates in bulk. Still incredible.

Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

#47

Post by kmoser »

PhilippGille wrote: post #27

If you are interested in scale models of New York, there's a 1:1 scale model in Minecraft: https://youtu.be/ZouSJWXFBPk

Is there a way to visit this online, without having to download and install software locally?

Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

#48

Post by dyauspitr »

noisy_boy wrote: post #45
drakythe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 1…

Maybe after a few thousand buildings, he built specialized tools to quickly build the templates in bulk. Still incredible.

Like what though? Every building is a little different and the fastest way I can think of is laser cutting or CNC which is still pretty slow. Unless he was whole hog CNCing entire city blocks that is. Though the article mentions “balsa wood cut with an X-Acto knife”. If that part is true, this is utterly incredible and I have no idea how he pulled off more than 100 buildings a day.

Re: A truck driver spent 20 years making a scale model of every building in NYC

#49

Post by jeffhwang »

c7b wrote: post #29

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.

I might have to visit this exhibit next time I'm in NY. I hope their materials will answer the question of how he dealt with new construction, remodels, and demolitions over his 20 years!
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