Jim Dykes NY tourguide Explores the New Hudson Yards complex -- New Tourist Destination in West Midtown Manhattan


The Hudson Yards is the name of a spectacular new skyscraper complex built on the far west side of midtown Manhattan on top of the Pennsylvania railroad train yards by the Hudson River. It’s billed as the “most ambitious new skyscraper complex since Rockefeller Center was built in the 1930s.”
 According to Jim Dykes, private NYC tourguide, Rockefeller Center is 19 skyscrapers covering 22 acres—currently Hudson Yards is approx. 26 acres and so far 6 skyscrapers are constructed with more planned. Eventually 13 of 16 planned structures will sit on a platform built over the Hudson River train yards.
The first of its two phases, opened in 2019, comprises a public green space and eight structures that contain residences, a hotel, office buildings, a mall, and a cultural facility called The Shed. The second phase, on which construction has not started yet, will include residential space, an office building, and a school.

It’s built by the RELATED COMPANIES and OXFORD PROPERTIES with some foreign investors from Asia and Europe. Lead architect is Kohn Pedersen Fox with assistance from Thomas Heatherwick who created the gigantic piece of “climbable sculpture” called VESSEL as the centerpiece of the complex.
A few years ago, this gigantic piece of land, created in the air rights over the train yards, was sold for over a billion dollars by the MTA. It’s located across the street from the Trump-conceived Javits Convention Center built on Eleventh Avenue in the 1980s.

Originally in the early 2000s’ then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg was submitting the site as the location of the 2012 Olympics, but when that failed it was talked about building a huge football stadium. When that idea was rejected, the current complex was conceived.
Currently, CNN Studios has moved there, Neiman Marcus and other shops have moved into the space but much of the retail planned for the complex is disturbingly empty, a sign of the times since everyone is now shopping online. 

One of the skyscrapers has an observation deck called The Edge that sticks out over midtown. It's higher than the Empire State Building's 86th floor observation deck but is still not opened. Hmmm.

The entire complex is connected to the High Line, the elegant elevated green space park built 3 floors above the West Side on the site of an old elevated railroad track which once transported meat, bread and other products from the old factory district by the New York westside docks, now turned into expensive loft districts in west midtown, Chelsea, the Meatpacking District, Greenwich Village, SoHo and Tri-Beca.

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