Sawt Falasteen - New York model, carved in a basement, goes on display

The wooden model, made to scale with some 800,000 pieces, gives a bird's-eye view of landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, as well as New York's more distant boroughs.

"It's almost like coming in on an airplane when you're looking out the window at 4,000 feet," creator Joe Macken, 63, told AFP in front of the colorful 50- by 27-foot (15- by 8-meter) structure.

"People walk around the city all the time, but they don't really see it like this. They're looking up. Now you're looking down," he said.

The exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York opens Thursday and runs through the summer.

Macken began his project in 2004, spending a couple of hours each night crafting sections of the city by carving balsa wood and sticking it to small polystyrene boards, which he then stored individually.

He said his wife and three children had been "very supportive" of the hobby.

The final display joins together more than 300 of the polystyrene boards to depict the entirety of New York City, including its waterways.

- 'Did I really make this?' -

It is not an exact replica of today's New York: the Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the 9/11 terror attack in 2001, feature alongside the new One World Trade Center.

Macken, a native New Yorker now living elsewhere in the state, said even he was surprised to see the finished project after more than two decades.

"I can't believe it. I mean, I look at this and I'm just like, did I really make this?" he said.

Museum staff organized the exhibit after seeing Macken sharing his work on TikTok, where he gained millions of viewers.

Elisabeth Sherman, chief curator and deputy director at the Museum of the City of New York, said she hopes visitors will "find their stories in the model."

"We want people to find where they live, where their family is from, where they want to visit, whatever their relationship to the city is," she said.

The largest model of New York is the Panorama, which is also the world's largest architectural scale model -- spanning more than 9,000 square feet (836 square meters).

It was built for the 1964 World's Fair and sits in the Queens Museum in New York.

E.Aziz--SF-PST