“The Edge” is the name of New York’s newest tourist attraction. From next year, visitors will be able to look down on the city from a height of 335 meters. According to the operator, the outdoor viewing platform is the highest in the western world.
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Expensive luxury apartments, elegant shops and the highest viewing platform in the western world: The Hudson Yards are opened in Manhattan. A gigantic new neighborhood that many New Yorkers are not enthusiastic about.
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WLike a beak, the pointed glass platform protrudes from the 100th floor of the 30 Hudson Yards skyscraper, visible from afar. From next year, visitors will be able to look down on Manhattan from a height of 335 meters – or climb around a few meters above with safety belts on the top of the skyscraper. After the opening, “The Edge” will be the highest publicly accessible outdoor viewing terrace in the western world, say the builders. The pointed platform is already one of the most spectacular architectural details of the Hudson Yards – a completely new district of New York that will be officially opened on Friday.
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Luxusviertel Hudson Yards – – – – –
The district is located on the Hudson River, on the west side of Manhattan, at about the same level as the Empire State Building, near the High Line, which has been transformed into a park. The dimensions are huge. According to the responsible construction company, this is the largest and most expensive non-public construction project in the history of the USA: around a dozen new luxury skyscrapers by star architects – some already finished, some under construction, some planned – with expensive apartments and offices . Companies such as the investment firm BlackRock and the German software giant SAP have already signed leases for this.
Manhattan is to be revived economically
A luxury hotel, a school, restaurants and a huge shopping center will also move in. Visitors can marvel and take photos, residents hardly have to move for all their everyday needs. All-new arts and culture center The Shed opens in April. In the middle of the building complex is a park and the walk-in work of art “The Vessel”, which consists of 154 different staircases with almost 2500 steps. “This is going to be one of the greatest public spaces in New York,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “A must-see and climbed place, an iconic sight.”
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This is what the Hudson Yards skyscrapers look like from afar
Quelle: picture alliance / Photoshot
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Space is actually a rare and expensive commodity on the island of Manhattan. The Hudson Yards, however, were made possible because the tracks leading off from Penn Station were covered. The idea for this came up after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg wanted to revitalize the shocked Manhattan economically. The real estate company Related Companies was awarded the contract for a billion dollars – and around 20 years later, its boss Stephen Ross realized his vision. Soon he wants to move into a luxury apartment in one of the skyscrapers in his new district.
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The spiral staircase “The Vessel” from below
Those: pa / dpa / Mark Lennihan
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“Steve is a never-ending optimist,” former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who was involved in the negotiations, told New York Magazine about Ross. “He just built a new house for himself. He is 78 years old. And he’ll enjoy it until he can’t anymore.” The Hudson Yards neighborhood is exactly what New Yorkers like, says client Ross. “When you live in New York, you want to have everything at your fingertips at all times.” His company promotes Hudson Yards as “the city within a city” and “the next hip neighborhood in New York.”
Tax breaks should amount to six billion dollars
For this city within a city, the New York government not only expanded the $2.4 billion Subway Line 7 – the developers have been financially supported for over a decade to make the 11-acre luxury complex a reality, reports say the „New York Times“. Government aid, such as tax breaks, is said to have totaled nearly $6 billion, according to public records and a recent New School analysis.
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There is still construction going on in the area
Quelle: picture alliance / Photoshot
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The newspaper also notes that tax breaks for real estate in Hudson Yards can be as much as 40 percent and last 20 years. According to opponents, this would inevitably lead to income inequality in the city of New York. The tax breaks would enrich areas of development “that ordinary people in New York do not benefit from,” the newspaper quoted James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center of New York City Affairs at the New School.
According to the “New York Times”, supporters of the Hudson Yards argue with the many new jobs in the emerging business district. But many New Yorkers are not enthusiastic – the new district is too sterile, not authentic enough and, above all, too expensive, and many criticize this at a time when New York urgently needs affordable housing. Hudson Yards was “a billionaire’s fantasy city,” the etched „New York Magazine“. “We feel like we’re not in New York anymore.”
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