Toothpick City

By Laura Kauppi, 4-H Forum

What do you get when you add 23 gallons of glue and 1.3 million toothpicks? A toothpick city, of course! You have not seen toothpick city? What are you waiting for? Head over to the Home and Arts Center right now! Be prepared to be impressed, amazed, and entertained. The creator, Stan Munro, has built models of some of the world's tallest buildings using nothing but his hands, toothpicks and glue. Among the featured buildings are: The Eiffel Tower, Yankee Stadium, The Chrysler building and The Brooklyn Bridge. Over 2,000 cars, made completely out of toothpicks, sit on a painted highway. Between the cars, lakes and trees, it seems the longer you look at the city, the more details you see. Some are hand painted by Stan Munro himself "I don't trust colored toothpicks" he jokes. In the center of the exhibit stand the twin towers, in memorial of those who died on September 11th, "I couldn't not include it," says Munro. The memorial plaques are in the shape of a police badge and a firefighter badge. In addition to remembering the victims of the September 11th event, Stan Munro is now selling toothpick cars and pieces of toothpick roads in order to raise money for the victims of Katrina.

For Stan Munro, this whole Toothpick City has been an idea born out of his sixth grade science project. Years ago, his teacher instructed the class to build a structure out of something that could hold the weight of an egg. Stan used toothpicks and quickly learned he could get the attention of his peers by building structures with toothpicks. He has always planned to build a city with toothpicks after retirement but decided to implement the idea early when he found himself out of work. "So I made work for myself," he jokes. Indeed he has made work for himself. The entire city, built using more than 1.3 million toothpicks, has taken him only 15 months to build. Often people are sure that he means 15 years, because 15 months seems so unbelievable. During the past 15 months, he has worked up to 18 hours per day building the city in his basement. He reports that he is often asked if he ever gets bored, to which he replies, "I never get bored." While he works, he watches the Discovery Channel or the History Channel on the television.

Toothpick City is the largest toothpick building collection in the world. Stan built these models using 1:164 scale. The hardest for him to build was the Chrylser Building because of its ornate top. In order for him to figure it out, he had to try other ideas when one didn't work. The Chrysler Building was also difficult because of its cylinders--a difficult shape to achieve using toothpicks! When beginning to work on buildings, he consults a book on the world's tallest buildings. He also uses the internet to find out specific proportions and measurements of different part of the buildings.

So how does he do it? First he glues the toothpicks together and tapes them with masking tape. When the glue has dried, he pulls the masking tape off. To cut them, he uses scissors.

When he first decided to do this he went to the store and bought $25 titanium scissors. When he brought them home and used them one time, they snapped in half. Stan went back to the store, this time the Dollar Store, and bought 25 pairs of $1 scissors. The dollar scissors worked for cutting toothpicks much better than the titanium $25 ones! "They are the ones in the world," says Stan.

How long does it take Stan to build a toothpick building? Well, it depends. With an average of two weeks, the boat, Queen Mary II, took only a week and a half, whereas the Brooklyn Bridge took him one month.

What will happen to the amazing city after fair? Stan will be selling it on eBay. Minimum bid? $65,000. A pretty good price, considering the cost of glue, toothpicks, and the labor of those long 18 hour days. Not to mention the cost of dollar store scissors and the masking tape! He hopes to be able to sell it as a whole city, as he has meant it to be. However, if it doesn't go for at least $65,000 he admits he will have to sell it piece by piece.

In the past, Stan has worked as a stand-up comedian, a crime writer and as the wacky morning man for Channel 13 in Rochester. Though this is his first toothpick sculpture of this size, he once sold a toothpick guitar he made. His advice "Do something different." It's fun and people like it." Visitors to the New York State Fair can even meet Stan Munro if they are lucky. He often is in Toothpick City talking, laughing and joking with fairgoers (remember, he used to be a stand-up comic.) A question Stan is often asked is how he got the city to the fair. "The biggest package of bubble wrap you've ever seen," he says laughingly. Often he adds a touch of wisdom to his word to fairgoers. "Do what you love and the money will follow," is his advice. When asked if he ever considered giving up building this huge city after considering the enormity of the project, he says, "If you set out to do something, you should do it. Even if it's really hard."

What can we learn from this wonderful once-in-a-lifetime exhibit? How about "Beware sixth grade science teachers everywhere!" Who knows to what levels students may end up taking their projects years later?

--Laura Kauppi

(reprinted from 4-H Forum - Volume 4 Issue 3)