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Swept away: Man's childhood fascination with NJ street sweepers becomes lifelong obsession

Associated Press
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McKinley Page spins a brush on a model street sweeper he made at his home Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, in Bethlehem, Pa. Ever since age 4, Page has been mesmerized by street sweepers and now spends his days hand-making miniature models after the machines in dozens of New Jersey towns and writing fan letters to street sweeping manufacturers around the United States. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (The Associated Press)

Model street sweepers made by McKinley Page sit in his home Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, in Bethlehem, Pa. Ever since age 4, Page has been mesmerized by street sweepers and now spends his days hand-making miniature models after the machines in dozens of New Jersey towns and writing fan letters to street sweeping manufacturers around the United States. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (The Associated Press)

McKinley Page connects a battery to a model street sweeper he made, at his home Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, in Bethlehem, Pa. Ever since age 4, Page has been mesmerized by street sweepers and now spends his days hand-making miniature models after the machines in dozens of New Jersey towns and writing fan letters to street sweeping manufacturers around the United States. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (The Associated Press)

Some people are into fast cars or sleek aircraft. McKinley Page has nurtured an obsession with a more mundane vehicle: the street sweeper.

Page is arguably the world's most enthusiastic devotee of the machines, and has been obsessed with them since his first glimpse of one as a child nearly 50 years ago in Newark.

He says the noise and movement of the brushes captivated him.

As a teenager, he even bought his own street sweeper, and used it to clean streets in his Newark neighborhood when city workers failed to make the rounds.

Page recently moved to Pennsylvania. But he still scours flea markets for toys to use for parts in the hundreds of miniature replicas he has created of sweepers used by sanitation departments across New Jersey.