I Collect Experiences: October 13, 2014: Grand Opening of Lego Store Flatiron

So I was taking a short 'refill-my-coffee-and-check-my-twitter' break and I saw a tweet from @jonnyjlm (aka Jonny Lee Miller who plays Sherlock Holmes on Elementary). T he tweet was a picture of Lego flowers in Madison Square Park. What’s this? Lego flowers? At Madison Square Park? Well, this is clearly something I need to go see. So, I grabbed my camera and my MetroCard (my two ‘don’t leave home without them’ items) and headed to MSqPark.

Well, it was so much more than just Lego flowers. It was a whole Lego festival-like-thang, celebrating the grand opening of a new Lego store in the Flatiron district (were the park is located).

At this event they were allowing kids to build ‘bricks’ (out of other bricks (aka Legos)), that would then be used as part of a giant Statue of Liberty made from these bricks of bricks. They also had (in addition to the giant Statue of Liberty) other full-sized Lego statues that were both fun and impressive engineering and design feats. As I wandered around looking at them (as well as the lego sculptures in the store itself), I thought of my nephew who wanted to be a Lego project designer. And I have to say…that would be a pretty cool job! So here’s to my nephew!

Okay, here are some of the Lego sculptures. So cool! Again, such amazing engineering.

Superman. I love how he’s not actually standing but ‘landing’. And the kids seem to really like him, too. :)

In case a Lego fire breaks out…

The Ninja turtles were impressive both from the front AND the back (the detail!). And that kid looks pretty impressed, too!

Ahhhh, a Princess (with the lovely flowers as a backdrop). Seriously, though – look at her dress/arm. All the SAME COLOR brick; and yet so easy to see it is a dress and arm; all because of form. Really cool.

Speaking of the flowers. I really did love them. And just the amount of work at went in to making them! They’re all different!

And, look, even Lego flowers lose their pedals!

And the Madison Square Park squirrels like them, too. :D

Here is the Statue of Liberty that they were building.

And I like this little series where you can see the builder plugging in a brick. And remember – that brick he’s putting in is comprised of a bunch of other Lego pieces that the kids put together. That’s just very neat for the kids to be able to be a part of it like that.

Now, after looking through the Park, I HAD to go over to the new store, of course. And it was a Lego-lover’s paradise!

Look at all the kits (and this was just one wall of them) and all the people!

And the décor was, of course, very Lego. Look at the awesome composition of the Lego sign in the middle of the store.

And even the lights, of course, were all shaped like different Lego bricks.

I want my own Lego people army.

A new definition of “Brick Wall”. ;) The coloring in the photos isn’t great, but it’s just so colorful and so playful. I’m not sure how to get the Lego bits from the top bins, but there were lots of people buying cartons and small buckets of bricks from the bottom bins.

But my favorite part of the décor was this stunning store-long mural (made of Lego pieces, naturally) of the history of the location of that Lego store. That is, if you were looking at that that mural, you saw five scenes of what had been on the very land you were standing on over the last ~300 years.

You can see in the background (beyond the Giant Hand, along the top of the far wall), the mural.

In 1700’s this very land was Farm Land. In 1839, here stood the Madison Cottage. In 1853, it hosted Franconi’s Hippodrome.

Starting in 1859, here stood the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and in 1909, the Fifth Avenue Building.

And today? Well, today it’s the Lego store and hotdog stands. :D

Finally, there was a large Lego mock up of The Flatiron Building, Madison Square Park, and the surrounds. Seriously, I want the job of whomever comes up with these things and all their details. Do you think they have, like, a pizza dinner and just brainstorm what all can be done? I think they do. So you get to have this job *and* free pizza. I'm a bit jealous of this person I just made up in my head. Below are the overall shots. For anyone that knows the area, it is easily recognizable as this neighborhood.