2026年2月6日 / 美国东部时间晚上8:43 / CBS新闻
纽约州克利夫顿公园 — 2004年春天，纽约州克利夫顿公园一名名叫乔·麦肯(Joe Macken)的卡车司机走下地下室楼梯，心中只有一个简单的想法：看看自己能否用轻木制作一些有趣的东西。
他决定制作纽约市洛克菲勒中心RCA大楼的微型复制品。他太享受这个过程了，第二天就又建造了另一座建筑。然后，他就停不下来了。
他表示，自己从未觉得做得太过火。即使当他完成了整个洛克菲勒中心、整个中城、整个曼哈顿，然后是整个纽约市时，也没有这种感觉。
麦肯的地下室太小，装不下所有作品，于是他把这些作品扩展到了一个储物设施中。
他的微型作品中，每一个方块都代表纽约市约1平方英里的区域。二十多年来，这些模型一直堆积着（详见此处）。
麦肯谈及他的微型城市计划时说：“我本来只是想看看。我不知道自己会拿它做什么，完全没有计划。我从未想过它会被放进博物馆。”
麦肯的“小苹果”（Little Apple）第一次在大苹果（Big Apple，即纽约市）展出，地点是曼哈顿的纽约市博物馆。
2026年2月，乔·麦肯在曼哈顿纽约市博物馆展示他的纽约市比例模型。（CBS新闻）
这个从2月12日开始的展览（详见此处）包含了纽约市所有五个行政区、所有场所和体育场，以及所有桥梁和建筑。它由麦肯雕刻的近100万座建筑结构组成。
麦肯指出，在整个创作过程中，他的妻子特里什(Trish)一直给予支持。他称妻子如此理解他的痴迷简直是个“奇迹”。
当被CBS新闻问及她的丈夫计划再这样做几十年时，特里什开玩笑说：“好吧，他可能没有跟我分享这些细节。”
麦肯从未打算创作一件杰作。然而，一件杰作就摆在他面前，因为伟大其实不过是由一百万步微小的行动组成，偶尔还需要一位至少能容忍这段旅程的伴侣。
麦肯说：“我会继续做下去。如果有必要，我会建造整个纽约州。它永远不会完工，永远不会。”
Truck driver spends decades carving a scale model masterpiece of New York City
February 6, 2026 / 8:43 PM EST / CBS News
Clifton Park, New York — In the spring of 2004, a truck driver named Joe Macken descended his basement stairs in Clifton Park, New York, with a simple idea: to see if he could build something cool out of balsa wood.
He decided on a miniature replica of the RCA Building in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. He enjoyed the process so much that the next day, he built another building. And then he just kept going.
He says there was never a point that he felt he had gone too far. Not even when he built all of Rockefeller Center, all of Midtown, all of Manhattan, then all of New York City.
Macken urban sprawled his way to a storage facility because his basement was too small to hold it all.
Each one of the squares in his miniature creation represents about 1 square mile of New York City. And for more than two decades, they have just been piling up.
“I was just going to look at it,” Macken said of his plan for the miniature city. “I don’t know what I was going to do with it. I had no plans. I mean, I never imagined it being in a museum.”
For the first time, Macken’s “Little Apple” is going on display in the Big Apple, at the Museum of the City of New York in Manhattan.
Joe Macken with his scale model of New York City at the Museum of the City of New York in Manhattan. February 2026. CBS News
The exhibit, which opens Feb. 12, includes all five boroughs, every site and stadium, and every bridge and building. It consists of almost 1 million structures carved by Macken.
Macken noted that through it all, he has been supported by his wife, Trish. He described it as “a miracle” that she has been so understanding of his obsession.
When informed by CBS News that her husband plans on doing this for several more decades, Trish joked, “Alright, he might not have shared those details with me.”
Macken never set out to create a masterpiece. Yet here a masterpiece lies before him, because greatness is really nothing more than a million tiny steps, and occasionally, a spouse to at least tolerate the journey.
“I’ll just keep going,” Macken said. “I’ll build all of New York state if I have to. It’ll never be finished, ever.”
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