Over the course of two decades, Queens resident Joe Macken meticulously built an entire city from the ground up. In fact, he built New York City—the whole thing—one building, house, and bridge at a time. Now, his expansive scale construction is on view in He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model at the Museum of the City of New York.

Macken began working on the 50-by-27-foot model in 2004, first in Middle Village, Queens, before moving to Clifton Park, New York. It comprises 340 individual sections, each built from everyday materials like cardboard and glue, with many of the buildings constructed of balsa wood and detailed with pencil and paint. He completed the structure in 2025, and it’s now on long-term view at the museum, where visitors can walk around it and are encouraged to use binoculars to find familiar buildings and neighborhoods.

You may also enjoy the “Panorama of the City of New York” at the Queens Museum, which was completed in 1964 and took a team of more than 100 people about three years to complete.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Joe Macken Spent 21 Years Hand-Assembling a Vast Model of New York City appeared first on Colossal.

Executives from Citi, Home Depot, and Capcom describe early work with AI agents

While AI agents have moved from experimental tools to customer-facing workers in a matter of months, the next challenge is governance and reliability once those agents touch real money, real shoppers, and real creative output.…

The singer’s company filed three applications on Friday after Matthew McConaughey launched similar strategy

Taylor Swift has filed applications to trademark her voice and image in a move seemingly designed to protect against AI misuse.

On 24 April, Swift’s company TAS Rights Management filed three trademark applications, Variety reports. Two of these are sound trademarks which cover Swift saying the phrases “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and “Hey, it’s Taylor.”

First lady accuses the comedian of ‘hateful and violent rhetoric’ in aftermath of White House press dinner shooting

In the aftermath of the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting, Melania Trump accused Jimmy Kimmel of “hateful and violent rhetoric” and said it was “time for ABC to take a stand” against the comedian who has long been critical of Donald Trump and his policies.

The first lady appeared to be referring to a monologue by Kimmel broadcast on Thursday, well before the Saturday attack on the White House correspondents’ dinner, in which he referred to Melania Trump as an “expectant widow” in a speech otherwise largely about the Trumps’ connections to Jeffrey Epstein.

China sold goods worth about $148bn to EU in first quarter of year, but imported just $65bn

The EU is experiencing a prolonged “China shock” as a flood of Chinese EVs into Europe helped push Beijing to a record surplus with the bloc.

New data showed China’s trade surplus – where its exports to the EU exceeded imports from the bloc – was $83bn (£61bn) in the first three months of 2026.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

1963 Pasadena Rose Parade

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide June 1968

Teaser trailer for season four of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. “Space is limitless in its beauty. And in its terror.” (Reminder: they are doing an episode with puppets this season.)

ST ANDREWS (ANP) - Het Brits Open golf wordt in 2028 niet gehouden op Turnberry in Schotland, de golfbaan die eigendom is van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump. De organiserende R&A koos voor de Royal Lytham & St. Annes in Engeland, meldt de BBC.

Trump wilde het majortoernooi graag naar zijn golfbaan halen en vorig jaar voerde zijn zoon Eric nog gesprekken met de organisatie om Turnberry weer aan te wijzen. "Ik vind dat mijn vader het verdient. Er is niemand die meer voor de golfsport heeft betekend dan hij", zei Eric Trump tegen de BBC. Ook de Britse regering liet van zich horen en zag in Turnberry een goede gastheer voor het Brits Open.

Directeur Mark Darbon van de R&A zei maandag dat er nog altijd "gesprekken gaande" zijn om het Brits Open in de toekomst op Turnberry te houden, maar zei ook dat voor 2028 bewust is gekozen voor de Royal Lytham. "Dit is een van de meest geliefde en historische golfbanen."

Het Brits Open van 2026 vindt in juli plaats op de Royal Birkdale in Southport, in 2027 is de Old Course in St Andrews voor de 31e keer gastheer.