The Brick Connection– A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Yo, yo, yo! How’s it hangin my fellow LEGO fans? How is your week going?

My week’s been pretty good, thanks. It started off with a day off from work Monday, which allowed me to make a short trip up to New York City. While there I had the great pleasure of going to One World Trade Center, sometimes referred to as the Freedom Tower. The observatory, which is on floors 100-102, just opened a few months ago, so my family and I decided to go check it out.

I imagine this place has been very popular in the short time it has been open, which means you would normally expect to wait in long lines. But we may have picked the perfect time to go because it was 6 pm on Labor Day; a time at which most people are probably already on their way home from the long weekend, getting ready to go back to school and work. Which meant we had a pretty short wait to get to the top.

And when we got there…Oh. My. Gosh. They do this awesome thing when you first get up there where they have everyone spread out facing a strange looking wall, and then after a short video introduction the wall goes up and there is New York City in all its glory. And you’re above it all, even the Empire State Building. (Fun fact: One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.)

Here was the first picture I took when the wall went up:

Look at that shadow the building is casting on the city below. Wow!

Here’s a blurry “selfie” I took. The Empire State Building is in the top left corner.

Here’s a clearer picture looking straight on at the Empire State Building:

What does this have to do with LEGO?

Oh…nothing. I just really love talking about it. But when I was back at work the next day it did make me want to seek out any New York City themed LEGO products or MOCs. It was slim pickings unfortunately. There was a LEGO Architecture product that allowed you to build a LEGO Empire State Building, but I think it’s been retired. By the way, LEGO Architecture is very cool. We should talk more about that sometime.

A Google images search ended up leading to my best New York LEGO discoveries. I found some MOCs people had built replicating parts of New York City.

Here is a MOC of Time Square by Sean Kenney:

Here is the Empire State Building, also by Sean Kenney, who I assume is the guy in the photo. I’m not sure how much of the city Sean attempted to build, but it looks like he built it to scale, which makes it even more impressive.

So LEGOLAND is a thing that I'm sure you all know about and there are two LEGOLAND Parks in the U.S. Both of those locations have what they call minilands, which are cities recreated using LEGO bricks. Of course, that includes the city that never sleeps.

Check out these pictures:

These pictures were taken a few years ago as you might be able to tell since the Freedom Tower, which wasn’t completed in real life until 2014, is still being built. That’s some nice attention to detail.

There are a bunch of videos of these NYC minilands that can be found on YouTube, but here is one of the best videos I found, taken on the first day LEGOLAND Florida opened in 2011. The video provides some great shots of all the little details, like Grand Central Station, the water fountain and gold statue in Rockefeller Plaza, and even a LEGO guy sitting on a toilet in a lovely NYC public bathroom.

All of that is crazy impressive, especially when you think of all the planning, time, and effort it took to build not only this miniland, but the many others they have as well. Plus it’s a MOC you can walk through. Where else can you do that but at LEGOLAND? I gotta say, I think even a non-LEGO fan or a novice one like myself would really enjoy LEGOLAND.

Which makes me curious? Have any of you been to LEGOLAND? Also, why are all the good theme parks in California and Florida? I guess because the weather is decent in those places year round. You don’t want to worry about your LEGO bricks getting frozen together.

Although LEGOLAND can’t be everywhere, they do have LEGOLAND Discovery Centers, which are smaller versions of LEGOLAND Park and have more locations, including six in the U.S. and two more opening next year. These are indoor parks, but like the LEGOLAND Parks they have rides, minilands, and more to entertain visitors.

This is where I found (through my Google search) my favorite New York City LEGO build. At the LEGOLAND Discovery Center in West Chester County, New York, which is right outside of New York City, they built a 12-foot-tall replica of One World Trade Center. This was first unveiled in July 2013. So they completed their One World Trade Center before the real one was completed. I think their task was a slightly easier undertaking though.

The LEGO skyscraper weighs 100 pounds and took 4,873 bricks and more than 260 hours to design and build. Check out some more pictures and an article about the display here.

Also, here is a video of the entire NYC display: 

Too cool! It even lights up to simulate its nighttime look.

Well geeze, all I have is this lame picture of the real One World Trade Center lit up at night.

Did I say lame? I meant AMAZING! :D My photography skills are on fleek! (Important question: Did I use that phrase correctly?)

Well, somehow I turned my trip to the Big Apple into a passable blog post about LEGO. How DO I do it?

Would it humor you to know that my actual intention for this week’s blog was to talk about the new Star Wars sets? But it’s not like I actually have purchased any of them….yet. So you basically missed out on me blogging about other people’s thoughts on the new Star Wars sets. Not to worry! There’s always next week. In the mean time, if any of you would like to leave your thoughts about the Star Wars sets, please do. I’m not going to hold my breath though.

Before I go though, I wanted to share a fun LEGO related story that I read involving the LEGOLAND Park in the UK. On August 30th a woman was on the way to the hospital to give birth, but her baby had other ideas. She had to pull over into the LEGOLAND Windsor parking lot and that’s where she gave birth. That’s a pretty good story in itself, but it gets better. LEGOLAND Windsor offered this newborn a lifetime pass to the LEGOLAND Windsor Resort. Very cool! Hopefully this kid doesn’t grow up to be one of those weirdos who doesn’t like LEGO.

Check out the article here and you’ll also find a picture of the birth certificate, which very specifically notes the place of birth of LEGO’s newest fan. Oh no! I guess that’s not me anymore! 


That's all from me for this week. Until next time...how about one more photo from the top of the World...Trade Center:

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*