The man who built New York, LEGO by LEGO
It was the late 1990s when the LEGO company obtained the rights to Star Wars. Jonathan Lopes was flipping through a copy of The New York Times when he saw an advertisement for the new X-Wing Fighter LEGO kit. He remembers making the trek from his Bronx home on the snowy Sunday to a Toys “R” Us in Yonkers to pick up the set, a move that reacclimated him with his favored childhood toy.
“I was like, ‘whoa, that’s kind of cool,” Lopes said of the X-Wing. “It’s LEGO — I liked LEGO as a kid, let me go and buy it and see what it’s like.”
Two decades later, Lopes is kicking off his first solo LEGO art exhibition at Downtown Brooklyn’s City Point. The show, comprised of about 30 New York structures like the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, City Hall and Grand Central Terminal, is accompanying the launch of his book, “New York City Brick by Brick.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.