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sean Kenney is a New Yorker whose profession is building the heights of New York out of bricks, Lego bricks.

Passionate about Legos since the age of four, Kenney spends his work day in a Chelsea studio building models of buildings and neighborhoods, among other things, with such intensity that he gets callouses on his fingers.

"I get to play with Legos all day long," Kenney said. "I have every 12-year-old's dream job."

He began his Lego building career in 1997, when he was working as a web designer but found himself gazing out the window of his New York City office at the skyline.

Kenney began building The “Brick” Apple, a model of New York City, after work. The diorama, made of 75,000 pieces, was four feet wide and eight feet long, and captured the street life of the city.  It included representations of hot dog vendors, the Empire State Building, department stores and construction sites.  The model took three years to complete.

"The benefit of building New York in Legos is that anything you build becomes whimsical," Kenney said. "And it makes something that might be normally gritty like New York and makes it fun."

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Sean Kenney showing his favorite Lego piece.

After completing "The Brick Apple" Kenney published photographs of his Lego creations online. People from Lego Group came across his work on his Web site, http://www.seankenney.com, and he was invited to the company for a meeting.

The company made Kenney its first Lego Certified Professional. Today, he is one of only four Certified Professionals. He's not employed by Lego but he is called on to help with projects for special events.

Kenney began receiving commissions, and he soon substituted his job for his passion.

Kenney arrives at his Chelsea studio at 9 every morning to begin building. One of his largest models is a six-foot-tall Chase Bank logo.

 The cost of models varies. He bases the price on the amount of time it takes to build the model and the actual price of the Legos.

"I adopt a parts and labor mentality," Kenney said.

The Empire State Building, which was used as a centerpiece of an international design gallery, took about a week to build and glue. It has 6,000 Lego pieces and costs $4,500.

One of Kenney's favorite models, made of 50,000 pieces, is a two and a half foot by four-foot diaroma of Greenwich Village.

"Greenwich Village is one of the first places I got to know in New York," Kenney said, adding, "The model catches the bustle, charm and the bohemian nature of the Village." 

It includes  little Lego men hailing cabs  and a well-known Village bagel shop.

  

"I like when you take something large and shrink it down and when you take something small and blow it up huge," Kenney said.

One of his most recent projects is helping a 9-year-old boy build his own model of Yankee Stadium.

"He comes over twice a week for Lego lessons," Kenney said. "It's like piano lessons, or golf lessons, except I'm Lego lessons."

The two have been working on the project for seven months, and the model will take a year and a half more to complete.

Kenney said he enjoys  "the actual craft of physically building over and over, brick after brick."

Last year he calculated that in building about a dozen commissions he had used 350,000 Legos from the 500,000 that he has.

But Kenney never forgets the first Lego blocks that he craved. As a child Kenney always wanted a Cargo Center Lego set. Although he never got it, he feels like he won in the end.

"I love my job," Kenney said. "When I work on something it takes all of me. It takes my passion and my drive and my focus. I feel it."