It smells as good as it looks.
The world’s borough is once again host to the world’s largest Christmas cookie-made village, which features 1,310 pieces of prime gingerbread real estate at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing.
Where am I and what the holly jolly heck am I doing?
Keep reading @amNewYork to find out? pic.twitter.com/petlUFzb3I
— Alex V. Mitchell (@AMitchReporting) December 20, 2019
Called GingerBread lane, it all comes from the holly jolly handy work of professional gingerbread chef, Jon Lovitch, who originally hails from Kansas City, MO but more recently from Queens.
It features just about everything that an ideal holiday village would have in real life, from a poinsettia pizzeria, to candy cane factories, a skating rink, ornament repair shops, civic centers for the elevated village. They even a pumpkin spice latte shop, in addition to so many entities that America’s cutest towns wish that they had.
Filled with many clever shop names such as the “11 Pipers Piping Hot Soup,” the GBPD and FDGB stations are marked as the 45th precinct and firehouse as nod to the 45th rendition of this Guinness World Record holding, entirely edible village.
Since this year’s village is on a 360, oblong rotunda for the very time, Lovitch showed some city planning skills in the nature of his design.
“I guess the front side upper rows in the middle are like Park Avenue because that’s where all the hot real estate is,” Lovitch said, going to note that the lower, right side is in turn like the lower east side since there’s so many factories operating in that section of the GingerBread Village.
Meanwhile, the back end of the setup is entirely residential.
“That side is like the outer boroughs,” Lovitch said.
In order for the master chef to bring back such a flourishing village for next year’s holiday season, he’s going to have to start baking and gathering his candy supplies within the next few days.
“It takes about a year in total,” Lovitch said.
More than just baking and icing the gingerbread (which he testifies could work as a real building material if not for rain), a major part of construction is obtaining the plethora of candy supplies needed to give GingerBread Village its adorable glow.
That procedure has taught Lovitch the art of candy deal hunting in ways that would have Willy Wonka taking notes.
From scouring Punxsutawney, PA on Groundhog Day to middle of the night trips to Duane Reade for deals, along with obtaining bags and bags from Walmarts after each holiday, Lovitch has done just about all of it.
Though, now as a father to a very young daughter, he has dialed back his candy hunting recently but remains confident that he’ll be “winning career day” at her school in upcoming years.
This next week will be the busiest for Lovitch and the science hall as they begin holding gingerbread workshops to teach the next generation of developers how it should be done.
After that, Lovitch will be giving away his entire gingerbread metropolis free of cost on Sunday, Jan. 12.
