Hudson Yards opening, a para-Manhattan in Manhattan
17/03/2019.
[New York] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Hudson Yards in Manhattan's West End is the largest development in New York City since Rockefeller Center. It is composed of a group of skyscrapers designed by some of the most renowned architects in the world, resting on a one-billion-dollar platform built on top of the train tracks sprouting from the nearby Penn Station. Nothing says New York like a large scale, multi-million-dollar enterprise.
The promoters claim it will create over 55.000 jobs and report around $500 million in taxes, and account for 2.5% of the city's GDP.
These numbers are impressive to say the least, but not all that glitters is gold. The New York Times' architecture critic, Michael Kimmelman raises the question 'Is This the Neighborhood New York Deserves?'. In his opinion, it clearly isn't.
The promoters claim it will create over 55.000 jobs and report around $500 million in taxes, and account for 2.5% of the city's GDP.
These numbers are impressive to say the least, but not all that glitters is gold. The New York Times' architecture critic, Michael Kimmelman raises the question 'Is This the Neighborhood New York Deserves?'. In his opinion, it clearly isn't.
The Vessel by Heatherwick Studio. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
The Vessel by Heatherwick Studio. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards in NY. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards in NY. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards in NY. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards in NY. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Image courtesy of Rockwell Group.
The Vessel by Heatherwick Studio. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
The Vessel by Heatherwick Studio. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
The Vessel by Heatherwick Studio. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Estiatorio Milos Terrace. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudsond Yards. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Queensyard Interior. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Queensyard Interior. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards, entrance office building. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Atrium view. Photograph by Steve Freihon. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Estiatorio Milos Terrace. Photograph by Michael Moran. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Plaza view with restaurant. Photograph by Francis Dzikowski. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Evening view of Hudson Yards, from the hudson river. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Hudson Yards by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
30 Hudson Yards by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
30 Hudson Yards by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Plaza view with restaurant. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Spanish culinary experience under the high line. Image courtesy of Related Oxford.
Upper level view through the Vessel. Rendering by Heatherwick Studio. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
View of outdoor terrace at Estiatorio Milos, shops y restaurants by Elkus Manfredi Architects. Rendering by Visual house. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
Restaurant view, the shops at Hudson Yards by Elkus Manfredi Architects. Rendering by Visual house. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
The great room at the shops at Hudson Yards by Elkus Manfredi Architects. Rendering by Visual house. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
Interior view of Estiatorio Milos, the shops at Hudson Yards. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
Atrium view, shops and restaurants at Hudson Yards by Elkus Manfredi Architects. Rendering by Visual house. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
North gallery, shops and restaurants at Hudson Yards by Elkus Manfredi Architects. Rendering by Visual House. Image courtesy of Hudson Yards.
The opening of the glittering and long anticipated Hudson Yards complex, a $25bn project in New York City, the largest private real estate project in the US made its debut Friday in Manhattan’s west side.
Among the 28 acres of new construction, overall, the opinion on Diller and Scofidio's Shed project is seen as "the most novel work of architecture on site." However, some critics see little to celebrate and criticize it as a playground and work campus for the rich, a ‘mall for the wealthy.’
This area started its planning decades back, when the city hoped to host the 2012 Olympics and envisioned a new football stadium in a place people avoided for decades, one of the last large and forgotten undeveloped areas in Manhattan. The Olympic dream and the stadium plan both died, but the idea of building up the far west side lived on. A public project to extend the 7 subway line, with the city’s first new subway station in a quarter-century opening in 2015, and the developer "Related Companies" eventually taking the lead, made it possible.
Now, some of the 15 buildings slated are already open and have drawn tenants such as BlackRock, Coach, Kate Spade and Warner Media. Other buildings are still years away from being finished. Stephen Ross, the billionaire founder of Related, is the mastermind behind the project, and plans to live there.
However, Michael Kimmelman comparing the complex to Rockefeller Center, a development inseparable from the city's geography and culture, finds that Hudson Yards lacks the precedent's emphasis on human scale and engaging public art.
Among the 28 acres of new construction, overall, the opinion on Diller and Scofidio's Shed project is seen as "the most novel work of architecture on site." However, some critics see little to celebrate and criticize it as a playground and work campus for the rich, a ‘mall for the wealthy.’
This area started its planning decades back, when the city hoped to host the 2012 Olympics and envisioned a new football stadium in a place people avoided for decades, one of the last large and forgotten undeveloped areas in Manhattan. The Olympic dream and the stadium plan both died, but the idea of building up the far west side lived on. A public project to extend the 7 subway line, with the city’s first new subway station in a quarter-century opening in 2015, and the developer "Related Companies" eventually taking the lead, made it possible.
Now, some of the 15 buildings slated are already open and have drawn tenants such as BlackRock, Coach, Kate Spade and Warner Media. Other buildings are still years away from being finished. Stephen Ross, the billionaire founder of Related, is the mastermind behind the project, and plans to live there.
However, Michael Kimmelman comparing the complex to Rockefeller Center, a development inseparable from the city's geography and culture, finds that Hudson Yards lacks the precedent's emphasis on human scale and engaging public art.
Last Friday, the public was invited into public plazas surrounding the Heatherwick's Vessel, a 150ft-tall climbable thing, building or sculpture made up of interlocking flights of stairs. In this, Kimmelman writes that it is "purportedly inspired by ancient Indian stepwells (it’s about as much like them as Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure is like Chichen Itza)," and that "the object — I hesitate to call this a sculpture — is a 46-meter-high, $200 million, latticed, waste-basket-shaped stairway to nowhere, sheathed in a gaudy, copper-cladded steel."
In this opulent area, even the trees are air-conditioned, with a climate control system installed to “ensure that the plants and trees at Hudson Yards will be the most pampered in New York City”.
All the opulence has drawn its share of criticism as a mega-project pandering to the rich and tourists with taxpayer dollars, while ignoring the real lives of the majority of New Yorkers.
An article in New York magazine labeled the development a “billionaire’s fantasy city”.
“I can’t help feeling like an alien here, as though I’ve crossed from real New York, with all its jangling mess, into a movie studio’s back-lot version. Everything is too clean, too flat, too art-directed,” wrote architecture critic Justin Davidson. “This para-Manhattan, raised on a platform and tethered to the real thing by one subway line, has no history, no holdover greasy spoons, no pockets of blight or resident eccentrics – no memories at all.”
Still unfinished, the highest outdoor observation deck in the western hemisphere is expected to open on the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards, a skyscraper reaching almost 400m, taller than the Empire State Building. The New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman ends his review with what sounds like one of its redeeming qualities, an uninterrupted view of Manhattan on the observation deck of the Hudson Yards' tallest tower. 'New York is awesome,' he thought as he recalled gazing over the city from the new vantage point. 'Then it occurred to me... from that deck you can't see Hudson Yards.'
The current development sits over the eastern part of the rail yard, which serves nearby Penn Station. There are still years of construction to come to build a platform over the western yard. Eventually, 4,000 apartments are planned for the site, with about 430 of them rented at below market rates in the city’s affordable housing program.
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