The Lego company is marking the 60th anniversary of its iconic building bricks by building a really big brick among, appropriately, Manhattan’s big buildings.
A 10-foot model of a red Lego brick erected Friday morning, will stand in Flatiron Plaza, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue, 23rd Street and Broadway, at Madison Square Park through 4 p.m. Sunday.
“The Flatiron District is the original home of the American toy industry, when the International Toy Center occupied 200 Fifth Ave., which is now home to one of our flagship Lego stores,” says Amanda Madore, senior manager brand relations for Lego.
The large replica of the classic Lego brick consists of 133,000 bricks, weighs 1,200 pounds and, according to Madore, took 350 hours to construct.
Today’s Lego bricks are available in more than 60 hues, while the original 1950s versions came in only red, black, blue, yellow and white.
The big brick isn’t for climbing, but is definitely available for selfies and photo ops. Madore encourages people to use the hashtag #WhatWillYouBuild when posting photos to social media.
If that inspires you to go home and pull any ancient Legos out of your attic, don’t be afraid to start mixing your grandpa’s Legos with your grandchild’s set. “The Lego brick itself has remained the same over the past six decades, says Madore. “In fact, our molds are so precise that the bricks produced in 1958 fit perfectly together with bricks that were manufactured yesterday. . . . Six Lego bricks of the same color can be combined in 915 million different ways, so we’ve been fortunate through the years to put the brick at the center of every innovation we’ve created.”
