These huge new skyscrapers in Manhattan are built on a specially designed platform
over a live rail yard.
The massive Hudson Yards development is everything New York:
big, bold and outrageously ambitious.
At $25 billion, the new neighbourhood is the largest and most expensive private real estate
development in U.S. history.
It’s transformed Manhattan’s iconic skyline and pushed the bounds of engineering,
generating tens of thousands of new construction jobs.
But it's also garnered a reputation as an elite district in a city already marked
by stark economic inequalities.
And it’s only half-complete.
There are big plans for expansion. But the lifeblood of Hudson Yards – luxury real
estate, shopping and dining – has been ravaged by the pandemic.
As the city tries to recover, the megadevelopment’s future is hanging in the balance.
Hudson Yards now dominates western midtown and the cluster of gleaming skyscrapers is
among the tallest in the city.
The Eastern Yard, which opened in 2019, spans W 30th to W 34th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue.
The Western Yard, the proposed expansion, will extend the megadevelopment further west
over the remaining train tracks.
For decades, plans to redevelop the area around the railyard were devised and dropped.
In preparation for New York’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, the city rezoned the area
in hopes of building a new stadium and accompanying buildings.
The Olympic bid and stadium plans ultimately fell through, but the vision to build an entirely
new neighbourhood remained.
The winning masterplan from Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group painted a picture
of a district built around office buildings, upscale shopping, restaurants, parks and the arts.
High-profile companies like Facebook, HBO and Wells Fargo all signed office deals and
developers said the project should contribute nearly USD $19 billion a year to New York
City’s GDP once completed.
In 2019, Hudson Yards opened itself up to
the public with much fanfare. Celebrities, politicians, architects, developers, a choir,
dancers and even Big Bird were all there for the grand opening.
But over the last year, the area hasn’t necessarily embodied the grand vision laid
out in the masterplan.
The pandemic has seen office life, shopping, dining and live performances all put on hold.
And criticism has emerged over how the project used tax breaks and government programs to
fund itself.
It's not exactly desolate at this point, but it's not vibrant either.
I live about a half a mile north of Hudson Yards and I go everywhere within a half mile radius, except there
because there is really no reason for a person who doesn't live or work there to go there
unless they are an ultra high end shopper, which I am not.
The pandemic really dealt a blow to what was already a risky venture.
The Eastern Yard is home to 1.8 million square feet of residential space, with apartments
in the luxury buildings going for millions of dollars.
In 2018, there was an affordable housing lottery where New Yorkers could apply to be selected
for one of roughly 100 subsidised units if they made between $22,000 and $125,000 a year.
Beyond housing, Hudson Yards has also given rise to some new landmarks in the city.
The Edge, a triangular observation deck 100-storeys in the air, is the tallest in the Western
Hemisphere. You can do yoga, sip frosé or take a photo laying over the glass floor.
Back on the ground, The Vessel, designed by Heatherwick Studio, has been a controversial,
yet undeniably ambitious public installation.
And The Shed is a cultural centre with a retractable outer shell that can double the building’s
footprint when pulled out over the plaza next door.
Phase Two calls for 6.2 million square feet of new development, including residential
buildings, an office complex and a Kindergarten to 8th grade school.
According to the New York Times, Phase Two appears to be on hold, as the developers are
seeking $2 billion in federal funding to build the 10-acre platform that will serve as the
base of the new development.
Related, the property’s developer, has not yet responded to our requests for comment.
Most of the affordable housing in Hudson Yards was supposed to be built in Phase Two, so
that is a rationale for completing the project.
But I think for the city, it's also a lesson to learn that we should never allow the public
benefit to come in phase two of a majorly financed public-private development.
Now as you might have guessed, building an entirely new neighbourhood and some skyscrapers
above an active rail yard is not easy.
You’re not just building a new development on land, you’re also building the land itself.
The Western Yard will be built on a 10-acre platform similar to the one constructed over
the Eastern Rail Yard.
Hundreds of pipes will be drilled into the bedrock between the train tracks and then
filled with concrete to create the pile foundations.
They'll take the load of everything above and pass it down to the much stronger bedrock
beneath the surface soil.
Trusses connect sections of the platform where it’s not possible to drill into the ground.
At some points, the Hudson Yards crew only has an hour or two to bring their rigs to
site, drill into the bedrock of the railyard, and remove the rigs before the trains come through.
Accuracy can come down to a fraction of an inch.
Just across Manhattan to the East, parts of Park Avenue were actually built on a similar
platform system around Grand Central Terminal.
To build something like this, they have to basically play a giant game of Tetris where
you're establishing the pillars in places that are unused by the train lines below.
Working around an active railyard is a delicate dance, planning construction around train
schedules so they can run without disruption, and all those trains generate a lot of heat.
A ventilation system of massive fans typically found in jet engines are nestled between the
platform and the railyard to help cool the space.
To protect the plants above the railyard from cooking, a system of tubing helps circulate
cooling liquid below the surface.
When you’re building on tight timeframes over moving trains, there's little room for
error - and digital modelling is crucial to making the most of your time on-site.
It’s difficult to put into words the volume of digital information that’s generated
when building a project like this. If it were all printed out and stacked-up it would probably
be another skyscraper in its own right, and a pretty unsustainable one at that.
From an engineering and architectural perspective Hudson Yards is already a modern-day
New York City icon.
But the success of new developments is really measured by their impact on the lives of people
that live in the area.
What I would like to see is not a decrease in the ambitiousness of our planning programs,
but rather to use that ambition to meet the actual social needs of people here.
So if we're going to do another project like Hudson Yards, we should be looking at what
the needs of people are in terms of housing, in terms of jobs, in terms of open space and
all the rest, and not sort of building for the highest end and assuming that it will
trickle down.
With such a huge area of inner-city land available for development, and near endless money at
the team’s disposal, Hudson Yards appears to have all the tools it needs to become a
vibrant new neighbourhood.
But it’s lasting success can only be determined by the culture and community that grows there.
To be truly embraced as a new New York City neighbourhood, Hudson Yards will need to deliver
what the people of Manhattan really need - not just what developers think they want.
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