Building a Life With Blocks

January 2004

Newsday
January 23, 2004
By Monty Phan
STAFF WRITER

Nathan Sawaya just won his dream job. Of course, it pays the 30-year-old lawyer a fifth of his current salary, is 3,000 miles from his Manhattan apartment and involves playing with plastic blocks.

On March 1, Sawaya, who was profiled in Newsday's Part 2 last month, will begin work as a "master model builder" at LEGOland, a 128-acre California theme park that is filled with intricate statues and figurines made with LEGO blocks. He was one of three such builders chosen last Friday after a nationwide contest.

A month before he was to compete, Sawaya said that, if offered the job, he would take it in a "millisecond." He hasn't changed his mind.

There are, of course, several details to work out. He's currently discussing options with his employers at Winston & Strawn LLP, a Manhattan firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions. His girlfriend of four years, who's also a lawyer, just started a new job and won't be coming with him. His biggest concern is his new salary, around $30,000 - enough to live on, but likely not that appealing to his student loan collectors.

Sawaya has had a lifelong love of LEGOs, even devoting a room in his Manhattan apartment to the pastime. But he insists the amusement won't become a burden once LEGOs go from hobby to job.

"Anytime you take on something like that, you have to be concerned that a job will become, for lack of a better word, work," Sawaya said yesterday. "I'm concerned about that, but there's no doubt in my mind that I have to try it. I really think I'm going to like it."

Newsday, January 23, 2004