What began as an idea for a dress-up party now swallows an apartment whole: an entryway crowded with brochures advertising the RMS Titanic ’s voyage from Southampton, England, to New York. A portrait of Captain Edward Smith in summer whites. Metallic foil pooling in the corners of the living room, now a replica of the ocean liner’s Veranda Cafe. Gilt portholes from Amazon flash bioluminescent blue. Since March, Sarah Boll has been building (and living inside) her own Titanic -themed diorama — a life-size, if scaled to fit a Chinatown two-bedroom, two-bath rental. “When I’m not working on it, replacing all the lights and tacking everything up,” she tells me, perched on the white sofa of her Veranda simulation, “I’m probably just in my bedroom, overwhelmed.”

Boll, 38, a model and broker

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