I was there this afternoon looking for the 99 Cent store. Still looking but I am an optimist.
I agree that it is a cold heartless place. The vessel, however shimmers and reflects like a funhouse mirror; and the images change with every movement including the movement of the sun and clouds. It alone is worth the trip.
Here's a film on Jane Jacobs. Too bad she wasn't around when they were planning the Hudson Yards. https://www.nfb.ca/film/city_limits/
It will take time to see what this evolves in too. After all it is not complete reserve your harsh judgement. If it was not built there would be on tax subsidies to moan about being given. It was a huge undertaking largest since Rockefeller Center built by another wealthy guy people loved to hate. Imagine Christmas without the "Tree" and no ice skating in rink. Keep a open mind.
With all of the tax subsidies, the residential buildings in the Hudson Yards area should have had a requirement to be owned only as primary residences for New Yorkers.
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so many things .....
-the 'vessel' is the world's ugliest 200M structure. already sick of seeing pics of it in social media.
-happy for HY, but all the HY buildings are aesthetically not even a close comparison to Rock Ctr. agree with michael kimmelman. it's not a site i am proud of as a new yorker.
-sick of "celebrity chef restaurants". (bc mario batali worked out so well)
-deblahsio implied AMZN abandoned us bc of bezos' affair ... uhmm okay, anything to shift the blame off his lame managerial skills. (i still laugh every time i hear he is running for president!)
-persian new year / nowruz?? otherwise known as SPRING? too many random holidays ... this is celebrated by less than 0.5% of the US population.
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What an architectural disaster the Hudson Yards has turned out to be. When it was first announced, I envisioned it could be an a stunning modern 21st Century version of Rockefeller Center. However, it is nothing more than a steel and glass mess. It has no unity of look and there is not one single building in the entire complex that inspires awe. The place is just big--that's about the best that can be said for it. There is nothing visionary, beautiful or uplifting about it. For my money, those who designed it should be paraded through the streets in shame and not allowed to build ever again. The place is just plain ugly... and when one thinks what it might have been. Alas, it is just big scar on the face of New York City.
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@Robert Callely
Yes!!!
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@Robert Callely
Agree. Apparently the only thing awe-inspiring about it is its price tag.
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In the end, this complex is just another playground for the rich courtesy of the tax payer. In reality, giving a developer a bunch of tax breaks to build in a certain area really hurts rather than helps. For every tax they don't pay, it forces others to pay even more. I know some will claim that I'm just being sour on this, but I feel that when it comes to any private development these days, no subsidies of any kind should be used to help them. If they really find the site so prestigious, then they can pay for it with their own money rather than making everyone else do it for them. As for my statement of saying that it's a playground for the rich is mainly because the mall is mostly overpriced stores with many of the apartments are luxury. Even the observation deck looks pretty small and will probably cost a lot to go up to it despite the ESB being not too far away and better located. In the end we just got another overrated design that will just be obsolete within the next decade.
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Hi Tal, when you say "For every tax they don't pay, it forces others to pay even more" - there is so much waste in the spending by our Mayor and Governor that we know about that boggles the mind, that it sometimes feels like an adaptation of Murphy's law "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong" - that anything that is there to be spent during their term will be spent in their term. (A Cuomo classic: Why spend a few hundred thousand to spiff up those tunnels with one attractive color of paint, when you can spend $28-million to do the precise detail work of state colors; not corrupt just wasteful, and doesn't add 5 cents worth to NY's image for tourism or anything to state pride - how many such decisions do we not hear about?)
I think sadly Mnuchin was given its of ammunition towards the tax bill not wanting the IRS to subsidize "If the money's there, why not spend it" Governors and Mayors, and the Governors and Mayors who are budget-wary with the tax revenue they collect get burned by the wasters. (Bill for President? Will the presidency close down every day from 9 to noon to go a nice Y in Georgetown? I'm assuming his entourage won't take the Acela to Brooklyn for his workout every morning, but really - who'd have guessed the head-shaking reality of what he does now and doesn't see anything wasteful about!)
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Your critic's old-fashioned humanism is clearly outdated. Outer space and the Ivy League are reserved for the super rich--so why not Manhattan?
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@Red Allover: Because we outnumber them!
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Just what NYC needed! More luxury homes for the rich. Another playground for the rich. More luxury shops and restaurants for the rich Oh but we plebes can go and gawk. And we can take the extended subway to our low wage jobs as doormen, janitors, maintenance workers, nannies, home health aides, cashiers, servers, bus boys, retail clerks—aren’t we lucky.
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My grandfather opened clams in a bar in Sheepshead Bay. The other was a waiter all his life. So?
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Hudson Yards, AKA "Vegas Strip East," is one of the ugliest and most out-of-context developments imaginable. It's a love song to MONEY and CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION, period.
It stands there walled-off from the rest of Manhattan, and looking down on it. And, BTW, with NO provision for a fire department presence!
Michael Kimmelman writes: “Hudson Yards glorifies a kind of surface spectacle — as if the peak ambitions of city life were consuming luxury goods and enjoying a smooth, seductive, mindless materialism.”
And he is EXACTLY RIGHT - this is what NYC is being boiled down to: Concentrated areas of people with way too much money, who revel in seductive & mindless materialism. The triumph of the shallowest of shallow is now a reality.
Kimmelman might have added that this ugly development is Michael Bloomberg's New York. It's Bloomberg's vision of what NYC should be: cater to the rich, and everyone else can just get out.
It's Ayn Rand-ville writ as large as possible.
And no regular humans need apply (unless for a janitor's job).
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Thanks for highlighting this slice of New York. Definitely must reading for some SFBay area communities being marketed and lobbied to subsidize and emulate Hudson Yards-type “planned cities within cities.”
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Thanks for the invite. But no. I don't want to visit Hudson Yards, even though my tax dollars helped pay for it.
Why? -- Don't we have enough playgrounds for the über-wealthy and over privileged in this city already? -- even though all those public art works are supposed to make us all feel included in its development somehow.
Sorry. I'll stick to seeing it depicted here in the NYT.
It's just not worth the schlep.
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Actually, I’m tired of seeing it depicted here in the NYT.
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You're right. It isn't worth a shlep.
Still, I visited that nice, warm day it opened. Curious, you know.
As architecture, it's nothing much, and the mall's music was ear splitting. And I'm not about to buy anyone anything from Cartier's.
But it was full of "regular" people strolling and sitting around -- if by that we mean dark-hued New Yorkers pushing baby carriages in which sat dark-hued babies, and people of all hues, dressed like me -- not in my best! -- lounging against walls of various sorts. Others, obviously not even middle class. Others, young people (how come they weren't in school?)
People living and working around there will take advantage of the parks and sitting areas as well as the new 7-train station. It will be used. Let's hope all those office buildings are.
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@B.
That part about "dark-hued New Yorkers pushing baby carriages in which sat dark-hued babies" was a bit disconcerting.
Just what are you trying to say, anyway?...
Isn't it enough that we're all just "regular" people?
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Hudson Yards is unique....a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there...or work there.
Location, location, location.
It's in the middle of nowhere - I thought I was walking to New Jersey on the way over last Friday.
The prices - well, the 2 bedrooms at 15 Hudson Yards were around $4.2 million......
I think the tax breaks given to the investors, developers, retailers, and businesses will be necessary for Hudson Yards to succeed.
It's high end, at the end of the High Line.
I've heard retail vacancies are nearing 23% in Manhattan...Saks is closing their women's store in Brookfield Place....
I wish Hudson Yards luck. lots of it! It's going to need it!
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I visited Coach's corporate offices last year in 10 Hudson Yards. It was beautiful. But I don't usually find myself that far west and the rest of the complex is a horror.
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Please don’t drop the Metropolitan Diary. It’s the icing on the cake for me. I look forward to it by skimming all that is before. Once I read it, then I return and click on article links.
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“Mayor de Blasio implied that an affair by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, played a role in the company’s decision”
This quote from the link really sings: ”There was a lot of turmoil. Let's just put it that way," de Blasio said, adding later, "I've just said what I've said."
Tune of “I Am What I Am” (La Cage - Gloria Gaynor version)
I’ve said what I’ve said
And what I’ve said is an enigma.
That deal’s done and dead
But I can’t let that be a stigma!
And now -
I say so much while I say very little
Somehow -
I get more buzz when I'm noncommittal
- (tries to turn attention to the Hudson Yards success)
Let’s go tour The Shed -
But as for Bezos,
I’ve said what I’ve said!
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Dear Azi,
How come the New York Today keeps moving around? Am I seeing things or does it appear early in the morning then disappear by 8am? I’d love to continue seeing it on my homepage all morning so I can enjoy it on my commute. Is there a specific setting?
Thanks,
Jess
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@Jessica like you, if i don't read ny today before noon, it's a struggle to locate it. i've tried using the search key, inputting all variations of new york today, to no avail. i've also emailed the nyt's customer service expressing my dissatisfaction with locating ny today. the best i can recommend is a) go to category new york, b) look for azi paybarah's name. there! now you've found ny today. happy reading.
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@Jessica
I am also finding this very annoying just to find these articles by having to search for it when it just said it right above.
3
When I lose the direct link to click, I just type
nytoday.com
and the New York Today main page comes right up.
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There are many thousands of NYCHA units that are empty and awaiting renovation. Year after year these units are not fixed and therefore remain uninhabitable. (A city administrator actually confessed that fact to a friend of mine: there is no shortage of lower-income housing.)
The proposed tower near the BBG will certainly cast a long shadow for long hours during the day and have an adverse impact on the life of the garden and its mission -- part of which is to educate children.
If I had to make a choice, I would vote, anyway, in favor of green things over towers. And birth control over the having of 5-6 children whose only world will be concrete streets.
But there is no need to choose. All over Brooklyn there are empty lots, empty storefronts, all ripe for purchase and development.
This project is in the wrong spot.
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Dear Azi,
Where is the Metropolitan Diary? You folks keep moving it around and it is just about my favorite thing so please do stop messing with it!
Thanks!
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@Pictorama In my New York Today it's always in the same place: the very last item, down at the bottom.
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@Pictorama
It's at the bottom of the column, as it has been for a number of months.
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@Pictorama, if you mean other than in New York Today, it's usually been here.
https://www.nytimes.com/column/metropolitan-diary?module=inline
Sometimes, it's fun to search an old week or even putting an old year in the search spot (I think as long as it's a year the Diary was on the net).. That old TV claim about reruns, "if you haven't seen it. then it's new to you" applies to the Diary too.
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Re: Ginia Bellafante’s discussion of open space vs. affordable housing...
A better discussion would be why open space has to be sacrificed at all, when clearly luxury developments like Hudson Yards and so many others gobble up space - leaving nothing left for regular people.
The space/land/housing grab by the wealthy is unsconscionable. Also unconscionable - our acceptance that this is OK.
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@LS: What do you mean when you say "our acceptance of this" is unconscionable? Are we supposed to bulldoze it?
And always remember this: "we the people" were NEVER consulted about Hudson Yards! Our needs were NEVER a consideration to Ross or anyone else in charge of this.
Hudson Yards is one of the many back-room deals that materially changes NYC without any consideration of, or input from, actual NYC residents.
And the developers sure know how to put in those POOR DOORS to keep the affordable-housing residents well out of sight of the Richie Rich types!
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Hi L,
In my opinion...
My concern is with "our" general societal acceptance that is "OK" for the wealthy to gobble up housing, space, resources, etc.
And everybody else suffers - lack of housing, space etc.
Similarly in the situation discussed in Ginia Bellafante's column - a neighborhood and an an unfair "choice" - either housing or green space.
Sadly, continuing development in NYC to benefit the wealthy and real estate interests - buildings for billionaires, the Diller pier project, the proposed "beach" on the East Side, the expensive greenbelt in lower Manhattan while parks in the boroughs are mostly unsupported, etc...
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@LS I would also like to know if all of this housing developed at the expense of open space is being fully occupied by full time NYC residents verse being added to the holdings of folks who own more than one home.
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