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Your First Look At The Epic Mini-Model Of The World Opening In Times Square
By
Scott Heins
Published Apr 2, 2017
Modified Apr 2, 2017
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Courtesy of Gulliver's Gate
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By
Scott Heins
Published Apr 2, 2017
Modified Apr 2, 2017
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Good news for all you mini-model enthusiasts! A new $40 million diorama of some of the world's most-beloved places is coming to Times Square, featuring eensy-teensy intricately-detailed cities, rivers, mountains, trains, monuments, people, and, uh, airports. Forty million bucks! What a time to be alive!
The diorama has been dubbed Gulliver's Gate and is the passion project of Eiran Gazit, an Israeli builder and designer who has devoted over a decade of his life to building hyper-realistic working models of our great big world—models in which trains run on time, boats float on real streams, and each street corner is populated by carefully-painted figurines. Gazit has previously exhibited a tiny-Israel model that spread across 14 acres in his homeland. His new Times Square mini-model is takes up far less space (only the size of a football field) but features recognizable landmarks from all across the globe and historically-accurate recreations of old civilizations. Who's ready to Instagram some tiny 12th Century English castles??
With Gulliver's Gate, Gazit has also promised “all manners of transportation known to mankind from horses and elephants to hot air balloons, jet planes and space shuttles.” Perhaps most impressively, it includes a fully-functioning futuristic airport, with planes taking off and landing. How do those tiny planes generate enough lift, and where do they fly to, anyway? Is that why this thing cost 40 million regular-sized dollars? There's only one way to find out. Preview showings of Gulliver's Gate begin next Tuesday, April 4th. You can scoop up some tiny tickets here.
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diorama
gulliver's gate
Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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