Heading to New York City? While you’re there, make time to visit Gulliver’s Gate, a $40 million miniature world that recreates iconic places with astonishing detail and technology. The installation occupies an entire Times Square city block and features a modern 1,500-square-foot model airport with planes that taxi, take off and land. Designed by lead modeler Adrian Davies, the attraction also includes extensive networks of highways, tunnels, bridges and railroad tracks with working trains that travel through mountains, villages and urban scenes. When finished, Gulliver’s Gate will include around 1,000 trains and roughly 12,000 train cars.
Completed sections already on display highlight New York City, Latin America, Asia and Europe. The New York City exhibit captures famous landmarks—from Grand Central Station and Central Park to the Empire State Building—alongside bustling neighborhoods dotted with cafés, hotels and pizzerias. The attention to scale brings the city to life: tiny cars and trains move along streets and tracks while miniature figures perform realistic actions, such as a tightrope walker balancing between chandeliers in Grand Central.
The Latin America display offers a range of landscapes and engineering marvels, including a watery recreation of Argentina’s Iguazu Falls and a working model of the Panama Canal where freighters pass through functioning locks. Ancient ruins like Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza are carefully reproduced, and vibrant urban scenes include Valparaíso’s colorful hills and Buenos Aires’ La Boca district.
The Middle East section features detailed representations of Jerusalem’s notable sites, including the Chords Bridge, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Via Dolorosa. In Asia, visitors can admire modern and historic wonders: the Shanghai World Financial Center constructed with 3D printing techniques, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, and evocative scenes from Vietnam and Malaysia.
The Europe exhibition — assembled in 137 days by a team of 31 model makers — showcases a wide span of the continent’s geography and landmarks. Highlights include the Alpine Dolomites, Norway’s fjords, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a recreation of the Colossus of Rhodes, Mount Olympus and Austria’s Danube Tower. Each scene emphasizes realism through careful landscaping, functioning elements and finely crafted miniatures.
Across all exhibits, Gulliver’s Gate emphasizes interactive and working components that enhance realism: operational trains and planes, moving vehicles and animated figures create dynamic scenes that change as you walk through. The combination of advanced engineering, traditional model-making and digital control systems makes the experience appealing to a broad audience—families, model enthusiasts and travelers seeking a unique perspective on the world’s landmarks.
Visitors can expect a blend of historical sites, modern cityscapes and natural wonders rendered at miniature scale with exceptional craftsmanship. Whether you’re drawn to the technical feats—like the airport and canal locks—or to the meticulous recreations of cultural icons, Gulliver’s Gate offers an immersive tour of global highlights in a compact, walkable format right in the heart of New York City.