The Gulliver's Gate miniature exhibit opens in 2017 with scenes from around the world; we got a peek at tiny New York.

Gulliver's Gate, a nearly 50,000-square-foot miniature world currently being assembled in Manhattan, includes scenes from China, Latin America, the planet Mars and, of course, New York City.

Model makers in Brooklyn are working on a mini-recreation of the Big Apple, but in their version the Roosevelt Island tram doesn't traverse the East River as it does in real life; it runs across Manhattan. And the Gulliver's Gate rendering of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has the balloons traveling along Park Avenue, rather than down Broadway.

"We've taken a lot of geographical license in building this thing because to miniaturize the real geography of Manhattan would be just crazy," explains John Kuntzsch, the owner of Brooklyn Model Works.

Photo credit: Pascal Perich/Gulliver's Gate

On a recent visit to Kuntzsch's shop, staffers were working on a cutaway that shows the subways and commuter rails under Grand Central Station, a Lenapi Indian village in Lower Manhattan, the Empire State Building, and the trapeze school along the Hudson River.

"We're using every trick in the book, from old-school handwork to laser cutting to CNC milling to 3D printing," said Kuntzsch.

Gulliver's Gate(Opens in a new window) , scheduled to open in April in the old New York Times building on West 44th St. near Times Square, employs cutting-edge technology to control thousands of kinetic objects: tiny cars, trains, boats, and planes. It uses software designed for toy car systems employed in the home, as well as the DMX lighting used in theaters to control a massive number of LEDs in the miniature buildings.

And the man tapped to oversee all this is a high school teacher and soccer coach from Massachusetts named Matthew Coté, the chief technology officer of the $40 million project. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I think it's pretty fair to say almost no one in the world has my job," he said.

Before he began his teaching career, Coté spent five years working as a mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin, where he designed a component associated with Hellfire missiles used on Longbow Apache attack helicopters. He's currently on a two-year leave of absence from Lenox Memorial Middle and High School where he taught physics, drafting, computer-aided design, and robotics.

"I didn't know it but much of what I was doing then [in school] is perfectly applicable to what I'm doing now," said Coté.

Coté spends most of his time in New York, commuting to his home in the woods in Western Massachusetts on weekends. But he's also been doing a lot of globetrotting in recent months, coordinating with model makers in Italy, Russia, China, Israel, and Argentina.

After walking a reporter past the model of the Hudson Rail Yards found on Manhattan's far west side, Coté explained that the trains in Gulliver's Gate will run on DCC, or digital command and control, a technology in which all communication is done through the rails. DCC was developed in the 1980s for two German model railway manufacturers.

One of the tech challenges Coté has been grappling with is that engineers working on the models are using different electronics architectures.

"We're bringing together some ostensibly disparate pieces of technology that you wouldn't think would play together nicely," said Coté.

The system created by the Russian model makers to move cars around, for example, is different from the system used for cars in the rest of the exhibition. The Russian system relies on an induction coil attached to the cars, which are continuously charged by electro-magnetic induction.

Cars in the rest of the exhibition use a system developed by the Danish company GamesOnTrack(Opens in a new window) , which relies on a miniature indoor GPS system. Six-inch long ultrasonic "satellites" are deployed on the ceiling within view of visitors. A combination of radio waves, ultrasound, and software keeps tabs on vehicles.

Photo credit: Pascal Perich/Gulliver's Gate

Typically, a GamesOnTrack system is sold to consumers who want to have toy cars running around in their basement. "We're trying to scale it up bigger than anyone ever dreamed," Coté said. "And that's a challenge."

Planes at the Gulliver's Gate mini-airport will also operate via the GamesOnTrack system. The planes, like the cars, send out an ultrasonic ping to pinpoint their location. The satellites will pick up the signal and report back to the software several times a second. The miniature airplanes weigh about four pounds and will simulate flight with the help of a support rod beneath the table on which the runway sits.

"As a visitor, you will see a plane… push back off the concourse, it'll taxi slowly, wind its way over the tarmac, out to the runway," Coté explained. "Lights will flash, you'll hear the engine roar, you'll see it accelerate down the runway and you'll see it lift off."

When asked what frequencies will be used to control the planes and cars, Coté replied with a hearty laugh. "I'm not going to say. I'm going to keep my mouth shut." He is obviously cognizant of the potential for hackers to create mischief in the exhibit. Other than that, there will not be an effort to to hide technology from visitors, he said.

"We want them to see the computers that live under the table. We want them to see the blinking lights because that's part of the fun. That's part of what makes nerds like me go, 'Wow, how do they do that?'"

A control room to monitor this cornucopia of technology will have a supervisor and three technicians watching a wall of video monitors that display the output of security cameras along with software used to control the trains, cars, and airport activity. Gulliver's Gate will rely on a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, which will communicate with programmable logic controller (PLC) computing devices scattered about the exhibition space. The PLCs will communicate directly with the models. If something goes wrong somewhere in the block-long exhibit space, the SCADA system will warn techs who'll be sent out to the floor to fix it.

And there's plenty that could go awry, what with a working replica of the Panama Canal and a model of Niagara Falls. In the latter, five projectors suspended from the ceiling will create the impression of water falling but the only actual H2O involved is a little mist.

Gulliver's Gate will also employ radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, which will enable visitors to operate that Roosevelt Island tram— for a fee.

There are other income-generating uses of technology. A 3D scan of visitors willing to pay for it will result in a miniature 3D-printed likeness that will be inserted in one of the models. Coté couldn't say how long that 3D selfie would remain in the exhibit, but Gulliver's Gate is scheduled to open this spring and the company is projecting more than a million visitors a year.

For the Lilliputian version of Times Square, advertisers will be able to place ads on small video displays that will serve as billboards in the exhibit. And remember the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The miniature balloons suspended on little wires to look like they're floating will initially portray a series of original characters created for Gulliver's Gate.

But the company is betting that when the exhibit opens companies with established cartoon characters will pay for them to be part of the parade. There's even a possibility that companies can pay for ads on the mini tour buses scooting around the exhibit. "I think sponsorships will start rolling once they see the obvious opportunity," said Coté.

For more, check out 11 Jaw-Dropping Miniature Movie Sets.

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Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based radio journalist and podcast producer who has reported for the NPR news magazines since 1980. He has written for Reuters and all of New York’s daily newspapers. Kalish lives in a loft with his wife Pamela, a painter, and two cats known as The Russians.

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