It was the middle of the 1980s, Micheal Jackson and Whitney Houston ruled the airwaves, the crack epidemic raged outside his front door, and a young Danny Cortes looked up at the television set as the usual commercials interrupted his favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Most kids would see nothing but the latest G.I. Joe action figure or kick-flipping Ninja Turtles, but Cortes has always been enamored by the small details. He looked beyond the flashy toys to the backgrounds that would one day inspire him to change his life.
“I was always drawn to the background,” Cortes recalled. “They’re trying to sell you this action figure, and the way they market it, with the brick building, the fire escape, smoke coming out of the sewer caps, was very realistic for me as a child at eight and nine years old. I was just drawn to that.”
Cortes loved the small worlds he’d see on TV shows, like Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. “I wanted to live in that community where Mr. Roger’s trolley would come around, and you’d get to see all these cool miniatures,” Cortes said. The only problem was that Mr. Roger’s miniature world didn’t look like the world around Cortes.
Born and raised in Bushwick, New York, Cortes grew up in an environment contrasted by vibrant color and callous danger. However, the glue holding his world together was always the sense of community he found in his friends, neighbors, and family. “As violent and chaotic as it was at the time, it still felt like a village. People just had their morals,” he said. “The neighbors were always looking out for the kids; it was a tight-knit community, even though you’d see all the chaos around you.”
Some of Cortes’ fondest memories were walking with his mom to run errands. He’d notice the small details that made up his neighborhood – the street signs, the graffiti, even the rust on the bodega ice box. Now, forty years later, nothing looks the same.
“Living in New York City, you have a fast pace, it’s the hustle and bustle, and there’s an icebox in that corner bodega, and you pass by that thing all the time, and you don’t recognize, you don’t take appreciation of it until it’s gone,” Cortes said. “You see New York City, and you think, ‘Oh, it’s changing, my hood is changing,’ and you reflect. [Everything] tells a story, even the rust dripping, it tells a story. Weathering, time, it’s been there, it’s seen you, it’s been looking at you all this time, and you just pass by it like nothing.”
As he grew up, life came at Cortes fast. He became a product of his environment and found himself on the wrong side of police handcuffs. As difficult as his arrest was, he remains grateful for the struggle, as it ultimately delivered him to his moment of destiny years later.
“I have no regrets. That was the journey. It was supposed to be that way. That was my book. Every book has a chapter; it’d be boring if it didn’t have ups and downs,” he said. “My biggest challenge was getting arrested and putting my mother through a situation she didn’t have to [go through].”
It was in a similarly dark time – during the COVID-19 pandemic, amid a divorce and overwhelmed in legal proceedings, that Cortes rediscovered his love of the small details. “I stumbled across these tools that were in my bedroom when I was cleaning the room, bored, during the pandemic,” he remembered. “Something was telling me it was the calling. I had so much direction; I wanted to do this, but God’s time was so perfect. He was like, ‘No, your story’s not to regret; it’s just to prepare you for what I have for you, my son.’ So that’s how I take my journey; that’s how I see it.”
With simple materials, Cortes built a time machine, a gateway back to the 80s and 90s and the passion he fell in love with as a child. “As far back as I can remember, I would collect cereal boxes and glue them together and make little bricks and just wander off for hours and hours in my own imagination,” he said. Forty years later, he was back in the flow state. He had rediscovered his passion, and he wouldn’t let it go this time. “I fell in love with miniature art and never thought about a dollar. I worked through my heart, and to this day, this is what I do.”
Cortes began documenting his art on social media. To his surprise, he found it connected to an entire generation who hadn’t noticed how much of their childhood they’d lost to gentrification. According to a study by the Fordham Research Commons, the average rent cost in Bushwick has increased by 44% since 2000, and the number of college-educated residents tripled between 2000 and 2010. Many of the neighbors who formed the vibrant community Cortes remembered were bought out of their homes by developers in an attempt to increase the value of historic brownstone properties in the neighborhood.
“Change is good. What I’m not cool about is the way they did it in my hood,” Cortes reflected. “They just went, ‘All right, you gotta get out of this building. I’ll pay you to get out, here’s what you gotta do,’ and I knew the victims of that, friends, cousins, family members who’d been through that, developers just come up and go, ‘Listen, we’re knocking this building out,’ The landlord gets paid, and that’s what happens.”
There is no question the neighborhood has changed. To some, it’s more beautiful, but it was always beautiful to Cortes and the thousands of kids who grew up in similar communities around New York. Through his art, Cortes creates a physical memory that can transport people back to a moment from their childhood. “It’s like freezing that moment, in a miniature. It’s letting the world see it,” he said.
Quickly, fans began pouring into his inbox with DMs and letters. Through his art, Cortes reminded the world just how beautiful the details they may have missed were. However, his art isn’t just about looking back; it’s also about paying attention to the details of today. “It’s very important to document these things because it’s changing,” he said. “It also inspires the next artist to document his era, which is now.”
Soon, fans began asking Cortes for commissions, and he faced a new creative challenge – making miniatures of locations he had never seen in real life. One of the most significant challenges of his career was recreating the mall location of late rapper Nipsey Hussle’s Marathon store. “I had no connection to it; there were barely any images out there, and I had to go off a lot of Google images,” he recalled. “When we took the piece there, my heart kept beating the closer I got to the location. I did it, I knocked it out of the park, it was exact, people were happy, it went viral, and Nipsey Hussle’s brother was happy.”
Some of Cortes’ favorite locations to recreate are restaurants and gathering places, locations that foster connection. He fully immerses himself in the vibe to make a miniature as realistic as possible. “I try to lock in, and whatever era I’m in or whatever burrow or miniature I’m doing, I try to really dive deep into it,” he said. He’ll play music he associates with the miniature – Frank Sinatra for Rao’s, an Italian restaurant, Fania All Stars for Spanish Harlem – and relies on detailed pictures and daily walks to spark inspiration.
Recently, Cortes has collaborated with high-end brands like Gucci and DKNY. On January 15, he posted a TikTok showing his process of transforming a simple Gucci box into a miniature of the store and an 80s payphone. The video has been viewed over 90 million times. His work was featured in commercials and collaborations with MLB Latino. Soon, Cortes hopes one of his miniatures can be featured in a movie or on a Broadway set.
After overcoming his own challenges, Cortes also felt a calling to give back. Just as he felt it was God leading him back to his craft, he felt divinely pulled toward his latest philanthropic venture – joining the Cristian Rivera Foundation as a board member.
“God put me in the path to come to that space,” he said. “CRF drew me to charitable efforts. I [re-connected] Gungie at Rao’s and then we clicked. He showed me the videos and it broke my heart. I showed my family, I showed the kids, and I just thought, if I can help in any way. God put me to meet Gungie.”
As he reflects on his journey, Cortes is humbled by the way he’s able to create art that connects with people around the world and follow the passion he first discovered as a child. Now, he’s using his art to help fund the race to cure Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, in hopes of helping children with DIPG live to fulfill their childhood dreams just as he has.
“If I can use my art to generate some income to find a cure, I’m all for it. I’m pretty sure everybody’s talents, everybody’s hard work, we can do this,” he said. Despite all his success, the most significant part of his art is the connection and inspiration he gives to those around him.
“It’s never too late. I started this hobby at 39; I’m 44 years old. I started during the pandemic. Even if your back is against the wall, and you’re in a certain stage of your life, and you think it’s over for you, it’s not. I’m living it. I can assure you, I’m living proof,” he said. Cortes has amassed an impressive following on Instagram, boasting celebrities and major companies, but his favorite messages are from those he inspires to follow their dreams. “Some of them are on probation, and just because you’re on probation or you’ve been locked up doesn’t mean life is over. Just focus. I give them hope with my story. With my art, I give them good memories.”
Today, his art sells for up to $10,000, but it’s not about the money. For Cortes, his work is about nostalgia, opening the gates to a moment trapped in time, a feeling that could never be monetized. “If I could give you a little five seconds of nostalgia, if I can give you just a little bit of a good memory, I did my job. It’s not about the money at that point; the goal is to make people happy, let them see this piece of nostalgia, and I feel good. It’s therapy for me; at the end of the day, I’m doing it for me because it makes me feel good.”
