Today
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Law firm Debevoise & Plimpton has signed a 20-year lease at the 65-story development at 66 Hudson Boulevard, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The firm will occupy 530,000 square feet lease across floors 40 through 52 of the building.
Debevoise was previously reported to be near a major lease across the street at the Related Companies’ 50 Hudson Yards, but Facebook’s 1.5 million-square-foot lease spanning three Hudson Yards buildings — including about 1.2 million square feet at 50 HY — led to a change of plans.
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Debevoise’s current home is a dump. Third Ave needs a massive overhaul.
Bringing clients (who can afford $800/hr for Debevoise) to this slum would be embarrassing.
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Hate to tell you this but like it or not, that is quintessential New York, not the sanitized Hudson Yards.
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Hate to tell you this, but NY is not “quintessentially” a filthy slum. London and Paris are pristine, and they’re the gold-standard that other cities should emulate.
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Calling that slum is just your hyperbole. Are they neat and beautiful? Probably not but they are not slum either.
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I’m not going to argue with you. You’re a great contributor, and I respect your opinion. I regard London’s pristine grandeur as the gold-standard. We obviously differ.
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You are not wrong and I don’t disagree with you (except for the slum part). London and Paris are on a whole other level as far as grandeur and you are perfectly justified to want New York to aspire to that but at the same time, New York (outside of certain stretches) were never like those two cities and there’s nothing wrong with that either.
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In the early 1900s, NY had the same grandeur as Paris and London. The overwhelming majority of majestic buildings in those cities aren’t old. They’re from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Unfortunately, a lot of putz developers in NY razed those stunning buildings and replaced them with garbage that infests the city to this day. London preserved its jewels, and with respect to the 1950s/60s garbage that was built to replace buildings destroyed during WWII, London has been diligent about redeveloping them.
Another problem is that so much dilapidated NY property is owned by total shmucks who have no interest in replacing it if it produces an income stream.
Only in NY can a filthy POS like this exist next to one of our greatest landmarks.
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To be fair London has some incredibly ugly modern buildings. They are just not as tall as the ones in NY so they’re less obvious
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Yes, and London has tons of nondescript older buildings that merely add a classical context for the standout older buildings.
That’s the way I see tenement buildings in NY, nondescript older buildings that provide a classical backdrop for the standouts. Definitely not slums. And they also give us the finely grained urbanism that defines the city. Small lots that allow for densely packed activity, business diversity, and architectural diversity. Assembling them and razing them for larger developments usually leads to a loss of that.
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I mostly second that. I’m a huge fan of the lot sizes on NY.
One of the things I don’t like about many European cities are their block sized buildings. The Haussmann buildings in Paris and the block sized buildings of Barcelona, while beautiful by today’s standards, are pretty lame when you stare at them for too long.
I much more prefer small lots with tall slender buildings. Cities like NY and Amsterdam have tons of buildings like that.
It’s that visual density that’s really really attractive in my opinion.
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Like this main street in London for example. The buildings are beautiful but they’re too big.
It’s those small lots that I find far more interesting
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But overall I agree with you that some of the stuff in the city is ridiculous.
I hate the thought of developers just sitting on derelict properties (or even empty lots) when there are plenty of people willing to build something. It’s not like there isn’t a demand.
Like this for example.
Why some of the smaller empty lots just sit there for a decade when you can easily build something like this is beyond me.
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Outside of NYC, Paris is my absolute favorite. The metro systems in both cities are on another level. But garbage and graffiti are still major issues and overall I definitely wouldn’t call either city pristine. Although, nothing is worst than NYC garbage in June or 34th street after Black Friday (or in general) 
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See, I was unimpressed with Paris. The amount of hype that city gets kinda threw me for a loop.
To me Prague has got to be the best all around “old world” city.
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Prague is amazing too. I’m sure there’s a ton of us on this site who enjoy traveling. Those who enjoy architecture, history & travel are all cut from the same cloth. Also, if you haven’t been and you prefer old world Edinburgh is next level 
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And the art museums in Edinburgh (and Glasgow too) and Paris are awesome.
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