This past weekend, I dug through my LEGO to build a display stand that could hold two heavy objects on my desk between my monitor and keyboard. It has a wide, lower space and a narrow, higher space for the two objects. To add some visual details, I used window panels along the front with transparent red cylinders in each window center, illuminated by ambient light entered through the top of the front.
I’m including more photos below of all sides to inspire others. Since it was a trial-and-error build, I didn’t create instructions for the build.
In March 2019, I met up with my buddy Alan Lovegreen to visit the Intrepid Museum, a WWII-era air craft carrier that had been repurposed as an air and space museum moored on the west side of Manhattan.
Alan and I had been hired the same year to work at City Tech in the English Department. While he was there, we worked together to inaugurate the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. Soon after that, he moved back to California for a new job. He was back in NYC to give a talk, so we picked a cool place to meet up.
Some exhibits overlap those at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and its Steven P. Udvar-Hazy Center that I wrote about last week, such as the latter also having a Concorde airliner. Also notable is that the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which had been at the Udvar-Hazy Center, is now at the Intrepid Museum. Space Shuttle Discovery is now at the Udvar-Hazy Center. But, some similar looking aircraft are actually experimental or specialized versions, such as the Intrepid’s Lockheed A-12 compared with the Udvar-Hazy Center’s SR-71 Blackbird. There’s also some other unique displays involving LEGO: a 1:40 scale model of the Intrepid and a 50,000 brick mosaic image of the Space Shuttle Enterprise flying over New York City atop a Boeing 747.
We couldn’t have picked a better day to go. It was a cool and clear day, so we spent most of our time on the outside exhibits on the flight deck and hanger deck, but we also went under the water line to explore the submarine USS Growler tied up at the same pier (I’ll post pictures of the Growler tomorrow).
Flight Deck
Conning Tower
Bell 309 KingCobra
Bell UH-1A Iroquois “Huey”
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21
Northrop T-38 Talon
Grumman F-11 Blue Angels
Lockheed A-12
Grumman F-14D Super Tomcat
Grumman F-9 Cougar
Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir/F-21A
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon
Anti-Aircraft Batteries
Hanger Deck and Interior
North American FJ-3
Martin-Baker Mark V Ejection Seat
Grumman Avenger Ball Turret
Mercury Capsule
Ship Interior
Space Shuttle Enterprise and Exhibit Area
The LEGO mosaic that capped off the Enterprise exhibit area was a cooperative construction project let by Ed Diment, who created the scale model of the USS Intrepid (below). The mosaic above depicts the Space Shuttle Enterprise’s flight over NYC before its arrival at JFK and eventual move to the Intrepid. It was constructed out of 50,000 LEGO bricks by hundreds of children and adults between July 26-28, 2013.
LEGO Build of the USS Intrepid
Built by Ed Diment, this recreation of the USS Intrepid with LEGO bricks is a 1:40 scale model. It is 22 feet long, 4 feet wide, and over 4 1/2 feet tall. It weighs 550 pounds and contains 250,000 pieces!
Y and I drove to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls for our honeymoon in 2009. One of the places that we stopped at among the many kitschy and wonderful tourist traps there was Brick City, a huge world constructed out of LEGO sets and populated by minifigures. There were trains, planes, and automobiles. There were science fictional time-and-space juxtapositions of the American West, Ancient Egypt, and 18th century piracy. There were space shuttles landing while another stood waiting on the launch pad. There is an AC/DC concert stage and the Golden Gate Bridge. Among the beautiful discord of scenes, sets, and characters was a custom model of Niagara Falls complete with a tightrope walker and the Maid of the Mist. For a LEGO maniac like myself who was eager to explore what’s there, it was a worthwhile place to visit. Unfortunately, it seems to have have closed down since then.
Thankfully, LEGO provides digital copies of their set instruction books online. This means that if you have the bricks, you can build anything in the LEGO catalog. Of course, it might take time and energy to hunt down each individual brick and element that you might need to assemble a given set if your collection is as disorganized and binned as mine is. Nevertheless, it’s satisfying being able to build something new with what you have instead of having to go out and buy it.
In this case, I assembled a set that didn’t buy when it came out in 2010: 8099 Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer. It took a considerable amount of time to find all of the bricks that I needed to complete it, and I had to cannibalize some other sets to get all of the parts. Eventually, it came together. However, I did have to make one off-color substitution deep within and hidden from external view.
It’s the 10225 R2-D2 set that was released in 2012 (shortly before I moved back to Atlanta).
It features a turning head, a little bit of wobble, arms, saw, data port interface, and a retractable third leg. It’s blockier looking than the 2021 R2-D2 75308 set, but its the blockiness that makes it endearing.
Though, be warned that R2, when left to his own devices, might try to hack your computer . . .
