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Taxpayers helped make it all happen. The city is laying out a total of $5.7bn in tax breaks, bonds and other spending in the area. Much of that is for public infrastructure: the extension of the 7 train, parks and a new public school. But Related and other commercial and residential developers are also getting a hefty break on their property taxes, adding up to more than $1.4bn, according to a November analysis by the New School.

“This project was sold as a self-financing project, which makes it sound like it’s free, but the reality on the ground is it’s actually very expensive,” said New School researcher Bridget Fisher, one of the report’s authors.

But the distaste in some circles never morphed into the wave of opposition that has greeted some New York mega-projects, like the now-scuttled planfor a new Amazon headquarters.

In a mostly undeveloped area, there were few home and business owners to fight the wrecking ball. And the deal was done before the current anti-corporate turn in the city’s and the nation’s Democratic politics.

Another critic, Eater’s Ryan Sutton, panned the development’s dining scene, writing that it “solidifies Manhattan’s slow transformation from one of the world’s most distinctive urban centers into a nondescript international mall for the wealthy” with a “style of urban planning that favors destination diners (and those who live in the luxe apartments) over anyone who hopes to walk down the block and feel the energy of people spilling out of crowded bars and culinary establishments”.

“It’s a reinvention of New York that would make a Las Vegas casino owner proud,” he wrote.