City Room: Bronx Is Up and the Battery’s Balsa

Detailed models of Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan made from balsa wood, in which three-eighths of an inch equals 100 feet, have been donated to the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times) Slide Show “There is a little New Yorker in every one of us,” said Michael Chesko, 50, of Mesa, Ariz. By “little” — in his case — he would mean two-hundredths of an inch (0.0215625), for that is how tall the 5-foot-9-inch Mr. Chesko would stand on the two astonishingly detailed miniature wood models of Manhattan that he has presented to the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City. The Midtown model went on display on Wednesday. The downtown model has been on exhibition since July. Mr. Chesko lives in a place where the sky is scraped at 16 stories. And until June, he had never been to New... [read full story]