The Ugliest Part of New York City

Hint: There is very little garbage and probably no rats

There are any number of places in this city that we who live here avoid unless we have friends in from out of town. And then there are places that we avoid altogether and don’t bother inflicting on visiting friends.

That would be Hudson Yards and, by extension, the Highline Park.

And today, surprise surprise, I see that a 19-year old kid from New Jersey has the distinction of being the first suicide chalked up by The Vessel, that ugly piece of “art” that looks like a not-finished construction project dreamt up by an Escher-wannabe. With all due sympathy to the family and friends of that young man, I’m puzzled that it took this long. That thing was screaming “Jump off me, you know you want to” from the minute they put the last I-beam into place.

There was a time when we would trot visiting friends down to take in the charms of the Highline which used to include great views of the Hudson river as well as seeing exhibitionists having at it in the windows of the Standard Hotel and being able to peer into people’s kitchens. It was about two years ago when we got to the north end of the Highline and happened upon the then-under construction Vessel (which tellingly looks practically the same now as it did then). We all agreed that it was impressive AF and bound to be a magnet for suicides.

There are very few views of anything but the steel and glass walls of the highrises that now hem the Highline in from nearly one end to the other. I’m sorry; you missed your chance to enjoy it.

There are many enclaves of the obscenely rich in this city and some are more baleful and dead than others. Park Avenue comes to mind with its endless blocks of squatty indistinguishable apartment buildings all guarded zealously by liveried doormen.

But in my two decades living in what has to be the Ground Zero of income disparity, I’ve never seen anything as ugly, pointless, and cheap-looking as Hudson Yards. Apparently this project was a “gift” from that clueless billionaire and former Democrat and then Republican and now Democrat again who’s attempting to buy himself the presidency of the U.S.: Michael “Stop & Frisk” Bloomberg. Nice work, Mike.

Ever since I moved here I’ve been bludgeoned with hysteria about The Death of the Real New York. It was one of my buddy, Pete’s, constant refrains and The Gothamist would have to go out of business again if it didn’t have that old dog to kick around at least once a week.

But I have to admit that seeing empty storefront after empty storefront on the Upper Westside and even along whole stretches of Madison Avenue, it would appear that we’re on the brink of something. I fear it’s not going to be something good until after it’s been something very, very bad.

It kind of amazes me that the people who can pony up $32 million to sequester themselves in a duplex condo in Hudson Yards think that they’re not sinking on the same boat the rest of us are. What boneheads keep building stupendously expensive real estate right by the rising water and this after Hurricane Sandy spanked us but good in 2012? Multi-millionaires, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, that’s who.

Now that Hudson Yards has built right up to the waterline, these two bozos are building Little Island, designed by the same genius who gave us The Vessel, the giant erector-set centerpiece of Hudson Yards that recently had to be closed to visitors after a third suicide in less than a year. Little Island is a man-made “island” jutting into the Hudson River. Disregard all those nobodies with their silly yammering about the climate crisis and rising water levels.

Let’s go walk on water!

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