Latest news with #30Rock
New York Post
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Truck driver spent 21 years creating a massive model of New York City out of balsa wood: ‘It was quite the process'
Is this NYC's next top model? Joe Macken has spent the past 21 years painstakingly erecting an intricate 3D replica of New York City by hand — using nothing but balsa wood, Elmer's glue and a whole lot of ingenuity. The finished product, unveiled recently in a viral TikTok video, features nearly a million buildings spanning all five boroughs — including the beleaguered Staten Island, and even parts of New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island. 'It was quite the process. I just kept building and building and building,' truck driver Macken, 63, told The Post of his sprawling pet project. 'I never thought in a million years I would ever get done with the whole, entire thing.' @balsastyrofoam300 Miniature model of New York City, carved out of balsa wood,21 years to build, almost 1 million buildings, 50ft, long,30ft. wide. ♬ original sound – minninycity04 At 30 feet wide and 50 feet long, the diorama is so gargantuan that he keeps it in a storage unit near his house in Clifton Park, about 20 miles north of Albany. It's not just the scale that boggles the mind. 9 'Every minute of spare time that I have, I just dedicate to doing that, and it just added up over the years,' said Macken. Hans Pennink The hyperrealistic homage is excruciatingly detailed, from Astoria's trademark row houses in Queens to the United Nations building and Central Park in Manhattan; the latter island took 12 years alone to create each skyscraper from scratch. 'If you're flying over Central Park and then you look [at] mine, it looks exactly the same,' the proud builder said. Macken's magnum opus has caught fire online, with TikTok viewers calling the 3D cartographer a 'living legend' and imploring NYC cultural institutions to showcase his Big Apple tribute in an exhibit. 9 Macken keeps his Big Apple replica in a storage unit near Albany. Hans Pennink Among the more than 12,000 comments — one labeled his work 'insanely impressive' — YouTube even weighed in from its official TikTok account, writing, 'A million buildings!? A museum needs to display this asap.' Not bad for a truck driver without any formal training in engineering or architecture. 'I knew it was my thing when I was doing it because, well, I was never into carpentry or anything like that,' Macken confessed to The Post. 'But I was into skylines.' 9 'I got better at it and more experienced, and I found faster ways to build it,' said Macken, shown in one of his social media posts. Joe Macken Macken, a Middle Village, Queens, native who moved upstate 20 years ago, told The Post that he began the project as a 'hobby' after getting inspired by seeing the Manhattan skyline out of his bedroom window. He also would watch old NYC documentaries featuring Rockefeller Center and iconic landmarks. It wasn't until April 2004 that he started creating his masterpiece, constructing one building a night, starting with the RCA building, aka Rockefeller Center. Before he knew it, he had 'built all' of 30 Rock, 'and then I started going uptown,' he said. 9 Macken shows off just a small segment of his mammoth city model. Hans Pennink 9 Macken said recreating Manhattan was especially difficult as he had to customize each skyscraper from scratch. Hans Pennink Just a year or two later, the whiddling wizard had 'built the whole Midtown [from] the Empire State Building, 34th Street, all the way up to 59th, all the way to the East River, and then to the Hudson.' After completing Manhattan in 2016, the model citizen then moved on to the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and finally Staten Island. The museum-quality craftsmanship is especially impressive since he used grammar school-grade materials from a local Michaels Art Supplies, opting for balsa wood after a friend told him that it's 'really light,' strong and 'easy to cut.' 9 'I can build a whole 30-by-20-inch section [with] 1,500 houses or 2,000 houses in maybe 12 to 15 hours,' said Macken. 'It used to take me weeks, like, 15, 20 years ago.' Hans Pennink He then used X-Acto knives for slicing structures down to size, Elmer's Glue for adhering them, and sandpaper and nail files for sanding while he colored the neighborhoods with acrylic paint using brush sets that cost $3.99. 'I don't need anything expensive to build this,' proclaimed Macken, who nonetheless estimated that he's shockingly spent between $20,000 and $40,000 on materials to date. Thankfully, Macken said that as his part-time but all-consuming project progressed, so did his technique. 'I got better at it and more experienced, and I found faster ways to build it.' He eventually went from meticulously constructing each building individually to mass-producing whole blocks by carving a row of houses out of 'the same piece of wood,' drastically saving time. 9 Macken's sprawling model — shown stacked up in a storage unit — also encompasses New Jersey and parts of Westchester. He even recreated Central Park and borough-connecting bridges. Hans Pennink 'I can build a whole 30-by-20-inch section [with] 1,500 houses or 2,000 houses in maybe 12 to 15 hours,' he said. 'It used to take me weeks, like, 15, 20 years ago.' Some incredulous TikTok viewers calculated that his million-building city would've required him to construct 137 buildings per day over 21 years. But he said they didn't factor in his time-saving technique. While the shortcut worked for the somewhat uniform outer borough dwellings — the Bronx took just two years, he told The Post — it didn't fly in Manhattan. Each skyscraper required special attention due to the diverse 'shapes and sizes,' he said. 'The Freedom Tower is tapered, so you have to sand that down and you have to cut,' said Macken, who populated his miniature Central Park with model trees from Hobby Lobby. 9 Macken claims to have spent between $20,000 and $40,000 on materials for the intricate model. Hans Pennink Composing the physical love letter to the Big Apple understandably required some juggling for a man with a wife, three kids, and two jobs: He delivers food and beverages during the week, while on the weekend, he drives luxury buses that chauffeur people to Yankees games and weddings. 'Sometimes I'd do all-nighters. I just build and build during any days off,' Macken said. 'Wake up early, I go right downstairs, and I work on it for about four hours on Saturday and Sunday morning, and I'm off Monday, so I do it then, also. 'Every minute of spare time that I have, I just dedicate to doing that, and it just added up over the years.' 9 Macken never set out to build the entire city. Hans Pennink Unfortunately, for now, Macken's pastime will remain just that. Despite calls for it to go on display, he said the mini-city is far too colossal to be shown at a museum — for now, anyway. 'I just made it so big that it's very hard to find a place to actually set it up and transport it,' Macken lamented. 'It would be a three-day process.' Until then, he plans to expand his creation and add other cities as well. His next fun-size urban project? Minneapolis, Minnesota — inspired, he said, by watching 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' as a kid. But unlike sprawling NYC, the much smaller Midwestern city should 'only take about two years,' he quipped with a hint of New Yorker side-eye.
Time Out
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The 'SNL' ticket lottery opens this week—here's how to enter for free
If you've ever dreamed of watching Weekend Update unfold live from a folding chair at 30 Rock, now's your shot: the Saturday Night Live ticket lottery for the 2025–2026 season officially opens at 12 am ET on Aug. 1. It closes on Aug. 31 at 11:59 pm ET, and you only get one entry, so make it count. To enter, send a single email to SNLTICKETS@ with your full name and a short note on why you want to be in the audience. Go ahead and gush (tastefully). Just know that applying early, late or more than once will get your submission disqualified. And if you're under 16, sorry, this sketch comedy club's off-limits. Winners (chosen at random) will receive free tickets for a random show date and time. You'll only be contacted if you're selected, so don't spend all of September refreshing your inbox. If you're not one of the chosen few, don't despair—standby tickets are still on the table if you're willing to work for them. Here's how that works: The standby reservation portal opens at 10 am ET on the Thursday before a live show. You can select the 8 pm dress rehearsal or the 11:30 pm live broadcast. Once you book, you'll receive a reservation number (eventually—it might take hours). Show up in person at the NBC Studios marquee on W. 49th St between 6–7 pm on Friday and check in with a valid ID. You'll then line up, by number and wait until 12:01 am Saturday, when actual standby cards are handed out. Standby hopefuls, take note: No tents, booze, sleeping bags or line-sitters allowed. If you bail on the line, you lose your chance. The cards are one per person and do not guarantee entry, but hey, it's still one of NYC's most iconic (and free) rites of passage.
The Drive
6 days ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
Tesla's Los Angeles Diner Is a Trojan Horse and a Wake-up Call
The latest car news, reviews, and features. The recent news cycle hasn't been kind to Tesla. Sales are down. Its CEO is locked in a pissing match with the most powerful office on Earth, and its investors are starting to wonder whether its leadership can rise to the moment. And yet, somehow, in the shadow of all that, it seems Tesla actually launched something new for once. Too bad it's not a car. Tesla's newest venture is billed as a 'diner and drive-in,' and its location on Santa Monica Boulevard (where a Shakey's previously stood) reveals it for the suburban eatery and retail destination it is, rather than the convenient service it could be. Under pressure to turn tables and actually make money, Tesla is using congestion fees to pressure its customers into spending less time loitering on the premises. What began as a fancy charging concept is instead a fast-casual, quick-turn restaurant in disguise. True to its 'drive-in' label, customers can send in their orders directly from their cars and be served upon arrival. The smart kitchen even queues up their tickets by driving distance, prioritizing those who will show first, and waiting to fire meals for those driving long distances to keep them fresh—and get existing customers out the door to make room for new ones. The optimization of it is very on-brand in the casual sense of the term, but what does it actually do for Tesla? We've seen such things before, after all. Superchargers made sense, certainly, but then came the tunneling operation, followed by the flame throwers and the tequila. Teslas were going to be the subway, now they're competing with Subway. The F-? And I can't help but ask, what does any of this have to do with selling Cybertrucks? Sure, a marketer could put some English on the notion of offering exclusivity, but Tesla's shilling the basics here, not high-end fare. On top of that, nothing about this concept is new. The truck stop as a concept has existed since the end of World War II. Even if we exclude America's ubiquitous rest stop food court, smaller-scale operations such as Wawa and Sheetz have been churning out made-to-order meals while its customers fuel up for decades. Some of their locations even offer something resembling a rudimentary dining room. The only difference is that neither enjoys the vertical integration of Tesla's approach, where they're selling you the car, the fuel, the snacks and the company line—all in one neatly wrapped package. But above all of that, it's a revenue stream, and one that couldn't have come at a better time. Revenue growth from simply selling cars is becoming a trickier proposition for Tesla, whose sales volumes have been in decline longer than company investors would like. With federal EV incentives going away later this year, Tesla stands to make even less money on each car it sells. Hamburgers it is, then. But at what scale? View this post on Instagram A post shared by 30 Rock (@30rock) As an attraction in Hollywood, the Tesla Diner may well succeed. But as a caricature of an actual service model, its need to turn tables outweighs any fealty to the community it was ostensibly built to serve. There's no room here for R&R it's all about ROI. Tesla owners are already 'hacking' this by showing up with their batteries as close to depleted as possible, extending their visits without risking penalties for overstaying their welcome. So why, in a nation where entire industries have formed around making money off mandatory fuel-ups, are so many people pretending that empty parking lots full of fast chargers are the way to go? America is the land of Buc-ee's and roadhouses. We were doing this nonsense back while Europe was still busy shooting at each other. So why have we gotten so bad at it? When I look at Tesla's cars, I see good ideas wrapped in questionable packages. Its Diner is no different. There's a kernel of genius buried in there somewhere, but it lacks the proper environment in which to thrive. Here's hoping somebody else can seed it, and finally put the 'rest' back in 'rest stop.' Got a tip? Send it our way at tips@
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jack McBrayer Spills on Famous Friends Alexander Skarsgard and Gavin Rossdale (Exclusive)
The Zillow Gone Wild host reveals what Skarsgard is really like after "he's always cast as an abusive husband or Tarzan," before sharing why he sent Rossdale an invoice after spending the holidays together. While best known for his work at Kenneth Parcell on 30 Rock and voicing Fix-It Felix in the Wreck-It Ralph film, Jack McBrayer is also known for having some pretty random, famous friends. The actor, comedian and current host of HGTV's Zillow Gone Wild has made headlines for his apparently unlikely friendships with both Alexander Skarsgard and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. While it's unclear how he met the rocker, McBrayer said he and Skarsgard were neighbors in Los Angeles and hit it off at award shows while representing their respective series, 30 Rock and True Blood. After being buds for more than a decade, attending award shows and starring in a Funny of Die sketch together, the two finally acted in something a bit more substantial this year for AppleTV+'s Murderbot. On the show, Skarsgard plays a robot who gains free will -- and becomes obsessed with the soapy show-within-a-show The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, on which McBrayer has a role as a navigation officer. "If you ever get an opportunity to do a TV show with your best friend, just do it. Just say yes," McBrayer told TooFab of his Murderbot cameos. "But of course this is all his doing, where he was in the process where they were developing the show, writing the episodes and he was like, 'Oh, and you should have Jack McBrayer be in it too,' and so they were like, 'Okay!'" Eventually, the two were even able to share the screen together on the series, thanks to a hallucination. "It was so fun!" he continued. "Our wigs, our costumes. He's a big goofball and I hope that more people are starting to realize that, because he's always cast as an abusive husband or Tarzan, but there's more to Alex than an abusive Tarzan." When it comes to Rossdale, fans didn't know the two were friends until Gavin himself revealed in an interview that McBrayer has spent the holidays with him and his kids ever since splitting from Gwen Stefani. The rocker also claimed the comedian once sent him an "invoice" for his "presence" after one particular outing, without giving much more context. So, of course, we asked. "Okay. So, to be fair, I am known for sending thank you notes. So for example, every home we go to on Zillow Gone Wild, I will send a handwritten thank you note to our homeowners," McBrayer told TooFab. "And that was 30 houses this season on top of 24 last season. It's a lot of postage, y'all. I'll need to invoice HGTV!" "But I have been friends with Gavin and his boys for such a long time and I'm so honored to be able to join them for special events, birthdays, holidays, super fun," he continued. "And so, after a while, if you're just writing a thank you note for every single occasion, I'm like, 'Well, I gotta shake it up a little bit. How do you top the last one?'" "And so, yes, there was one time I did create an invoice for him. A joke invoice," he insisted. "But, it was really fun to do and he did get a kick out of it. I was just like, 'I charge an exorbitant fee for his other friend for making small talk.'" See more of McBrayer on HGTV's Zillow Gone Wild, airing Fridays! Solve the daily Crossword
Pink Villa
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Ted Lasso Season 4 Begins Filming in Kansas City With New Cast and Storyline: Everything We Know So Far
Apple TV+ has officially started production on Ted Lasso Season 4, with filming now underway in Kansas City, Missouri, Jason Sudeikis' hometown. The new season will also shoot scenes in London. This marks the return of the beloved sports comedy, which originally premiered in 2020 and has won over audiences worldwide. The streaming platform confirmed the news, sharing that the next chapter of the Emmy-winning series is in full swing. Original cast members are back The core cast is returning for Season 4. Jason Sudeikis will once again step into the role of Ted Lasso, alongside Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, and Jeremy Swift. In a major update, Grant Feely will now play Henry Lasso, Ted's son. The addition of Feely is part of a new batch of cast members joining the show this season. Several new faces are set to appear in the upcoming season, including: Tanya Reynolds Jude Mack Faye Marsay Rex Hayes Aisling Sharkey Abbie Hern Grant Feely Apple has not yet revealed details about the roles the new cast members will play, except for Feely, who will play Henry. Here's what season 4 is about According to Apple TV+, the official logline for Season 4 reads: 'Ted returns to Richmond, taking on his biggest challenge yet: coaching a second division women's football team. Throughout the course of the season, Ted and the team learn to leap before they look, taking chances they never thought they would.' The series will follow Ted and his new team as they navigate the challenges of women's football, offering a fresh direction for the show. Jack Burditt, known for Modern Family and 30 Rock, joins the team as an executive producer under a new deal with Apple. Returning producers include Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Brett Goldstein, Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly, and Jane Becker. Sara Walker and Phoebe Walsh return as co-executive producers and writers, while Sasha Garron joins as co-producer. Julia Lindon serves as a writer, and Dylan Marron is on board as story editor. The series continues to be produced by Warner Bros. Television in association with Universal Television and Doozer Productions. There is currently no confirmed release date for Ted Lasso Season 4, but the production update confirms that the beloved show is on its way back to screens.
