NEW YORK: Amazon.com Inc abruptly scrapped plans to build a headquarters in New York after opposition from local politicians and some of its would-be neighbors, the third most-valuable public U.S. company said on Thursday.

Amazon’s search for a second headquarters, which it described as HQ2, was deemed a massive, year-long public relations success, garnering worldwide publicity and interest from cities across the United States and Canada.

Accustomed to fawning advances from municipal leaders around the country, Amazon seemed startled by the brusque, even rude, welcome it got from some New Yorkers.

Some residents of the Queens neighborhood mounted protests. Politicians from the Democratic Party’s leftward flank, including the freshman U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, decried the state’s promise to give the company, controlled by the world’s richest man, billions of dollars in tax breaks.

People briefed on the decision said Amazon had made the decision early Thursday after intense talks starting Wednesday and amid rising concerns about the small vocal minority. The people said Amazon will not shift any of the planned jobs to Tennessee or Virginia but plans to grow its existing network of locations.

Amazon had planned to have 700 employees in New York as part of the HQ2 project by the end of the year and did not plan to hit 25,000 in Queens for 10 years.

Read More: Amazon reconsidering move to New York: report

The company had begun considering alternatives last week. The online retailer has not yet acquired any land for the project, which would make it easy to scrap its plans, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The proposal ran into opposition from local politicians who opposed the $2.8-billion in incentives promised to Amazon in a deal secretly negotiated by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In a statement, de Blasio blamed Amazon for failing to address local criticism.

“We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he said. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”

The company said, “for Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term.”

Some residents of the neighborhood, once a scruffy haunt of artists that has rapidly gentrified with a burst of recent high-rise development, had also opposed the plan.

Long-time residents feared being forced out by rising rents and untenable pressure on already overburdened subway and sewage systems.

Cuomo was a staunch advocate of the project, joking that he would change his name to Amazon Cuomo if it might help sweeten the deal. He touted not only the jobs it would create but the long-term tax revenues it would generate.

Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com, said the about-turn could spook other companies thinking about expanding in New York.

“This is a stunning development, with Amazon essentially giving in to vocal critics,” he said.

Amazon said Thursday it did not plan to re-open the yearlong search that drew 238 proposals from cities across North America.

Nashville, a finalist that was awarded a consolation prize of a 5,000-employee location, said it remained open to an expansion of Amazon’s plans in Tennessee.

Shares of Amazon were down 0.5 percent.

“I think the PR event turned out to be a mistake,” said Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at the Roosevelt Investment Group, who owns Amazon shares.

“It went on for too long and started a frenzy. You can compare this to Google sinking billions of dollars into the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan without making noise or Apple investing in Austin.”

Rival Alphabet Inc’s Google said in December it plans to invest more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York to double its current headcount of more than 7,000 people.

Hours before the announcement, Amazon officials in New York betrayed no knowledge of the deal’s cancellation when they met with local community members on Thursday morning, said Kenny Greenberg, a neon artist and member of Long Island City’s community board.

“Either they are really good poker players or they were not aware,” Greenberg said of the Amazon representatives. “There was no hint of this at all.”

Greenberg said he had been open to Amazon’s arrival if it had led to improvements in infrastructure, but that “unanswered questions” continued to mount as time went on.

The meeting with Amazon officials had been held to answer concerns from the community about labor conditions for Amazon’s warehouse and delivery workers and the company’s opposition to labor unions.

“Defeating an unprecedented act of corporate welfare is a triumph that should change the way we do economic development deals in our city & state forever,” Jimmy Van Bramer, a city councilman from Queens who had opposed the project, said on Twitter.

One of the city’s most powerful private-sector unions, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said the company’s abrupt exit confirmed its criticisms.

“Rather than addressing the legitimate concerns that have been raised by many New Yorkers Amazon says you do it our way or not at all, we will not even consider the concerns of New Yorkers,” union spokeswoman Chelsea Connor said in a statement. “That’s not what a responsible business would do.”

Chicago, Miami and Newark are among the passed-over finalists that have expressed interest in another chance to become the home of an Amazon project.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon will not be building a new headquarters in New York, a stunning reversal after a yearlong search.

The online retailer faced opposition from some New York politicians, who were unhappy with the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives Amazon was promised. The Seattle-based Amazon had planned to bring 25,000 jobs to New York, and spend $2.5 billion building its offices.

“We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York,” the company said in a blog post , adding that it has 5,000 workers in the city and plans to grow those teams.

Amazon said Thursday it does not plan to look for another location at this time, and will continue to build out offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Please check back on WSVN.com and 7News for more details on this developing story.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Amazon.com Inc.’s abandoned plans for a New York City headquarters may have prompted mixed reactions in the Big Apple, but for the rest of the country, it’s good news. In its announcement, the company said it would continue to invest in its 17 North American corporate and tech hubs, as well as its forthcoming expansions in Northern Virginia and Nashville. Setting politics and any immediate fallout aside, the decision could significantly benefit America’s tech economy in the long run, say experts in regional economic development.

The answer to overcrowding in Seattle and Silicon Valley wasn’t to build yet another tech headquarters in an already crowded city like New York, but to spread out. The best situation of all, they argue, would be if Amazon were to distribute its intended 25,000 New York jobs across these other sites, where it already employs more than 20,000 people. Amazon could face challenges in distributing its hive mind across more than a dozen cities, most notably because of what economists call the agglomeration effect—where businesses increase efficiency by clustering workers together. But in place of that, it would be able to find talented workers who might not want to move to a coastal megacity. Not only would smaller markets more likely welcome a job creator like Amazon, but by pushing more money and talent into these other regions, Amazon has the opportunity to build the tech hubs of the future, says Natalie Novick, research director at the European Startup Initiative and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego, where she studies the genesis of startup hubs in the U.S. and Europe.

Even if it limits itself to cities in which it already has corporate offices, Amazon has a chance to develop cities outside of America’s top-tier metros in the same way U.S. tech companies have created startup hubs in Europe and Asia. “What’s essential is having people with experience in a high-growth company” like Amazon, she adds. “That is something you really can’t build so much from a homegrown ecosystem.” It may sound funny to think of, say, Detroit as an up-and-coming city, but it isn’t far from the truth. America’s second-tier cities aren’t so different from Dublin around 2011, says Ms. Novick. In Dublin’s case, advantageous tax rates attracted the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants, but what happened next is common to many startup hubs the world over. First, well-resourced and fast-growing companies show up and start hiring people. Then some of those employees, often the most ambitious and talented ones, leave. They build startups, which can get acquired or even become significant enterprises in their own right. Some of those founders become angel investors, seeding the next batch of startups, creating a virtuous circle not unlike the one that built Silicon Valley. What companies like Amazon can create when they invest in regional hubs is a pool of employees that have personal networks that span the company and a work history that shows they are battle-tested and worthy of further investment, should they strike out on their own, says Ms. Novick.

Amazon isn’t really performing that same service if it invests heavily in New York. Rather than build up the tech community, Amazon was going where there already was a large pool of qualified potential workers. “We were heading towards an outcome that wasn’t particularly healthy for the nation in terms of the spatial or the geographic shape of the economy,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the policy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program there.

If you were to design a national program to distribute the kinds of technical and corporate jobs that Amazon offers, you could hardly do better than to spread those jobs across at least a dozen different metro areas, adds Mr. Muro. There is ample evidence that developing the economies of more of America’s cities has the potential to help not just those cities but, on average, another eight metro areas surrounding each of them, as supporting service economies spill over into adjacent towns, cities and suburbs, he says. In addition to its vast network of distribution centers, Amazon already has corporate and tech offices across North America, most with hundreds or thousands of workers. In addition to the San Francisco Bay Area and New York (where the company says it has 5,000 employees in corporate, tech and distribution jobs), these metro areas include Detroit, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Dallas. All are already hubs for regional talent with nearby tier-one universities, and many are superstar cities in their own right. But plenty of them have affordable housing and underused infrastructure unlike anything in New York. There are certainly risks for Amazon from its about-face, beyond just damage to its reputation in the Empire State. By failing to build another headquarters in a hub of media, advertising and tech like New York City, Amazon is missing out on agglomeration, says Michael Farren, a research fellow at the Mercatus center at George Mason University. For a company so dependent on innovation, competing in winner-take-all markets, those agglomeration effects have so far driven Amazon and its competitors to concentrate their workforces. Communications technologies have made distributed workforces more capable than ever, but they have yet to fully replace the need for face-to-face communication, adds Mr. Farren. But in spreading out its offices, Amazon can develop more pockets of talent. As evidenced by the spread of tech startups outside of coastal hubs, talent has already taken root in countless cities from Denver to Chattanooga. The battle for talent in high-demand fields means more workers than ever are working remotely. As much as Amazon wanted flashy new digs in the city that never sleeps, the long-term effects of spreading its largess and diversifying the locations of its talent pool could be manifold. Another benefit of smaller markets is that they aren’t likely to be as politically prickly as New York. In Seattle, the company’s scale and economic clout means it is often blamed for whatever is wrong in the city, from skyrocketing housing prices to traffic. In seeking “HQ2,” it might have been looking for a way to alleviate the pressure, and even shift its center of power, says Mr. Farren. Imagine, then, the surprise when the company discovered that New York City could be just as hostile, politically. “I think they misjudged on New York, and decided, ‘No, we’re just going to end up with an East Coast version of Seattle and that’s what we’re trying to get away from,’ ” says Mr. Farren. If Amazon continues to pump employees and resources into its regional mini-HQs, cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Detroit could become the next Dublin, Berlin or Amsterdam, all tech hubs in Europe that developed quickly as U.S. companies poured into them, says Ms. Novick. “Things that wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago are coming out, people are starting new things and many have experience working in one of these multinational companies,” she says. “The experience you get at [companies like Amazon] is really immeasurable.” For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Instant Message podcast.</s>NEW YORK >> Amazon abruptly abandoned plans for a big new headquarters in New York that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city, reversing course after politicians and others objected to the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives promised to the company.

NEW YORK >> Amazon abruptly abandoned plans for a big new headquarters in New York that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city, reversing course after politicians and others objected to the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives promised to the company.

“We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York,” the online giant said in a blog post, adding that it already has 5,000 employees in the city and plans to increase that number.

The stunning reversal was a serious blow to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had lobbied intensely to land the project. The Seattle company had planned spend $2.5 billion building its new offices.

Amazon faced fierce opposition over the tax breaks, with critics complaining that the project was an extravagant giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies and that it wouldn’t provide much direct benefit to most New Yorkers.

“This announcement marks a landmark victory for our communities and shows the power of the people, even when taking on the world’s richest man,” said Deborah Axt, co-executive director of the anti-poverty group Make the Road New York.

She said the Amazon was getting “taxpayer giveaways” so that it could “force its empire-building on our neighborhoods.”

Amazon said it does not plan to look for another headquarters location at this time and will continue with its plans to build new offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee. The Arlington is expected to be the same size as the New York one, with 25,000 employees. The Nashville office is expected to have 5,000.

A Quinnipiac University poll released in December found New York City voters supported having an Amazon headquarters 57 percent to 26 percent. But they were divided over the incentives: 46 percent in favor, 44 percent against.</s>Amazon jilted New York City on Valentine's Day, scrapping plans to build a massive headquarters campus in Queens amid fierce opposition from politicians angry about nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and the company's anti-union stance.

With millions of jobs and a bustling economy, New York can withstand the blow, but experts say the decision by the e-commerce giant to walk away and take with it 25,000 promised jobs could scare off other companies considering moving to or expanding in the city, which wants to be seen as the Silicon Valley of the East Coast.

"One of the real risks here is the message we send to companies that want to come to New York and expand to New York," said Julie Samuels, the executive director of industry group Tech: NYC. "We're really playing with fire right now."

In November, Amazon selected New York City and Crystal City, Virginia, as the winners of a secretive, yearlong process in which more than 230 North American cities bid to become the home of the Seattle-based company's second headquarters.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded the city's selection at the time as the biggest boon yet to its burgeoning tech economy and underscored that the deal would generate billions of dollars for improving transit, schools and housing.

Opposition came swiftly though, as details started to emerge.

Critics complained about public subsidies that were offered to Amazon and chafed at some of the conditions of the deal, such as the company's demand for access to a helipad. Some pleaded for the deal to be renegotiated or scrapped altogether.

"We knew this was going south from the moment it was announced," said Thomas Stringer, a site selection adviser for big companies. "If this was done right, all the elected officials would have been out there touting how great it was. When you didn't see that happen, you knew something was wrong."

Stringer, a managing director of the consulting firm BDO USA LLP, said city and state officials need to rethink the secrecy with which they approached the negotiations. Community leaders and potential critics were kept in the dark, only to be blindsided when details became public.

"It's time to hit the reset button and say, "What did we do wrong?"' Stringer said. "This is fumbling at the 1-yard line."

Amazon said in a statement Thursday its commitment to New York City required "positive, collaborative relationships" with state and local officials and that a number of them had "made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward."

Not that Amazon is blameless, experts say.

Joe Parilla, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, said the company's high-profile bidding process may have stoked the backlash. Companies usually search for new locations quietly, in part to avoid the kind of opposition Amazon received.

"They had this huge competition, and the media covered it really aggressively, and a bunch of cities responded," Parilla said. "What did you expect? It gave the opposition a much bigger platform."

Richard Florida, an urban studies professor and critic of Amazon's initial search process, said the company should have expected to feel the heat when it selected New York, a city known for its neighborhood activism.

"At the end of the day, this is going to hurt Amazon," said Florida, head of the University of Toronto's Martin Prosperity Institute. "This is going to embolden people who don't like corporate welfare across the country."

Other tech companies have been keeping New York City's tech economy churning without making much of a fuss.

Google is spending $2.4 billion to build up its Manhattan campus. Cloud-computing company Salesforce has plastered its name on Verizon's former headquarters in midtown, and music streaming service Spotify is gobbling up space at the World Trade Center complex.

Despite higher costs, New York City remains attractive to tech companies because of its vast, diverse talent pool, world-class educational and cultural institutions and access to other industries, such as Wall Street capital and Madison Avenue ad dollars.

No other metropolitan area in the U.S. has as many computer-related jobs as New York City, which has 225,600, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas each have a greater concentration of their workers in tech.

In the New York area, the average computer-related job pays roughly $104,000 a year, about $15,000 above the national average. Still, that's about $20,000 less than in San Francisco.

Even after cancelling its headquarters project, Amazon still has 5,000 employees in New York City, not counting Whole Foods.

"New York has actually done a really great job of growing and supporting its tech ecosystem, and I'm confident that will continue," Samuels said. "Today we took a step back, but I would not put the nail in the coffin of tech in New York City."</s>Mounting pressure against Amazon’s planned second headquarters in New York has led the e-commerce giant to scrap its ambitious project.

In a statement released Thursday, the Seattle-based company announced the decision to forego building a home in Long Island City, which was expected to bring in 25,000 corporate jobs to the area and speed along the redevelopment of the formerly industrial neighborhood. It was intended to be one of two future headquarters sites, along with Crystal City, Va., following a yearlong competition that saw major cities including Atlanta, Dallas and even one Canadian metropolis vying to house the retailer.

However, New York’s state and local leaders clashed over the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives the company would stand to gain in return, and City Council lawmakers have scrutinized the deal in a series of hearings that began late last year. (Separately, during a news conference last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo called the state Senate’s resistance to Amazon’s plan “governmental malpractice.”)

In its statement issued today, the e-tail giant explained, “For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”

Amazon added: “We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people and culture — and particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners and residents.”

The company further noted that it now employs more than 5,000 Amazon workers in the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island areas, and intends to continue growing those teams, though it gave no further specifics about its plans for New York.

Amazon did state that it will not reopen the search for another location, but will move forward with its Virginia headquarters as well as offices in Nashville, Tenn.

Amazon Reportedly Plans to Build a Fulfillment Center on the Site of This Abandoned Mall

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How Amazon Became the Most Valuable Public Company in the World</s>NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 9: A protest message directed at Amazon is spray painted on a wall near a construction site January 9, 2019 in the Long Island City neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Last November, Amazon announced that it has chosen Long Island City and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia as the two locations which will both serve as additional headquarters for the company. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

By JOSEPH PISANI, AP Retail Writer

 NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon says it will not be building a new headquarters in New York, a stunning reversal after a yearlong search.

 The online retailer has faced opposition from some New York politicians, who were unhappy with the tax incentives Amazon was promised.

 Amazon said Thursday it does not plan to look for another location, and will continue to build out offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon jilted New York City on Valentine’s Day, scrapping plans to build a massive headquarters campus in Queens amid fierce opposition from politicians angry about nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and the company’s anti-union stance.

With millions of jobs and a bustling economy, New York can withstand the blow, but experts say the decision by the e-commerce giant to walk away and take with it 25,000 promised jobs could scare off other companies considering moving to or expanding in the city, which wants to be seen as the Silicon Valley of the East Coast.

“One of the real risks here is the message we send to companies that want to come to New York and expand to New York,” said Julie Samuels, the executive director of industry group Tech: NYC. “We’re really playing with fire right now.”

In November, Amazon selected New York City and Crystal City, Virginia, as the winners of a secretive, yearlong process in which more than 230 North American cities bid to become the home of the Seattle-based company’s second headquarters.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded the city’s selection at the time as the biggest boon yet to its burgeoning tech economy and underscored that the deal would generate billions of dollars for improving transit, schools and housing.

Opposition came swiftly though, as details started to emerge.

Critics complained about public subsidies that were offered to Amazon and chafed at some of the conditions of the deal, such as the company’s demand for access to a helipad. Some pleaded for the deal to be renegotiated or scrapped altogether.

“We knew this was going south from the moment it was announced,” said Thomas Stringer, a site selection adviser for big companies. “If this was done right, all the elected officials would have been out there touting how great it was. When you didn’t see that happen, you knew something was wrong.”

Stringer, a managing director of the consulting firm BDO USA LLP, said city and state officials need to rethink the secrecy with which they approached the negotiations. Community leaders and potential critics were kept in the dark, only to be blindsided when details became public.

“It’s time to hit the reset button and say, ‘What did we do wrong?'” Stringer said. “This is fumbling at the 1-yard line.”

Amazon said in a statement Thursday that its commitment to New York City required “positive, collaborative relationships” with state and local officials and that a number of them had “made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward.”

Not that Amazon is blameless, experts say.

Joe Parilla, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said the company’s high-profile bidding process may have stoked the backlash. Companies usually search for new locations quietly, in part to avoid the kind of opposition Amazon received.

“They had this huge competition, and the media covered it really aggressively, and a bunch of cities responded,” Parilla said. “What did you expect? It gave the opposition a much bigger platform.”

Richard Florida, an urban studies professor and critic of Amazon’s initial search process, said the company should have expected to feel the heat when it selected New York, a city known for its neighborhood activism.

“At the end of the day, this is going to hurt Amazon,” said Florida, head of the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute. “This is going to embolden people who don’t like corporate welfare across the country.”

Other tech companies have been keeping New York City’s tech economy churning without making much of a fuss.

Google is spending $2.4 billion to build up its Manhattan campus. Cloud-computing company Salesforce has plastered its name on Verizon’s former headquarters in midtown, and music streaming service Spotify is gobbling up space at the World Trade Center complex.

Despite higher costs, New York City remains attractive to tech companies because of its vast, diverse talent pool, world-class educational and cultural institutions and access to other industries, such as Wall Street capital and Madison Avenue ad dollars.

No other metropolitan area in the U.S. has as many computer-related jobs as New York City, which has 225,600, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas each have a greater concentration of their workers in tech.

In the New York area, the average computer-related job pays roughly $104,000 a year, about $15,000 above the national average. Still, that’s about $20,000 less than in San Francisco.

Even after cancelling its headquarters project, Amazon still has 5,000 employees in New York City, not counting Whole Foods.

“New York has actually done a really great job of growing and supporting its tech ecosystem, and I’m confident that will continue,” Samuels said. “Today we took a step back, but I would not but the nail in the coffin of tech in New York City.”

Follow Sisak at www.twitter.com/mikesisak and Boak at www.twitter.com/joshboak .

Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Bernard Condon in New York and Chris Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.</s>Amazon is ditching its plans to build a new headquarters in New York after facing backlash from members of the community.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Jodi Seth, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Amazon selected New York City and Northern Virginia in November to split duty as its second headquarters (nicknamed HQ2) after a year-long search. Each city was expected to have more than 25,000 workers over time.

This is a developing story. More to come…</s>As it turns out, those reports about Amazon reconsidering its plan to build one of its "HQ2s" in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City weren't just trial balloons intended as a warning to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to get his people in line.

Because in a Thursday announcement that will undoubtedly be heralded as a major victory by "Democratic Socialists" like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the e-commerce giant announced that it would scrap its plans to move to New York City, much to the chagrin of Cuomo and de Blasio, who signed off on a $3 billion package of "performance based" state, city and public-private incentives offered to Amazon.

Amazon shares have rallied in the aftermath of the announcement.

But the ramifications for New York State politics will be far more profound.

Amazon didn't mince words in its statement, placing the blame for its decision to deprive the state of what Cuomo's office once described as one of the biggest economic boons in recent decades squarely on the shoulders of progressive New York lawmakers who objected to the deal.

Specifically, lawmakers like AOC and confederates in the New York State legislature opposed the massive tax incentive package offered to Amazon (which came out to more than $40,000 in kickbacks for every job the company had promised to create) and the potential for the new campus to shift the gentrification process into overdrive (the main building would have been situated just blocks away from the Queensbridge Housing Project, America's largest public housing project.

After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people, and culture — and particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners, and residents. There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams. We are deeply grateful to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and their staffs, who so enthusiastically and graciously invited us to build in New York City and supported us during the process. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have worked tirelessly on behalf of New Yorkers to encourage local investment and job creation, and we can’t speak positively enough about all their efforts. The steadfast commitment and dedication that these leaders have demonstrated to the communities they represent inspired us from the very beginning and is one of the big reasons our decision was so difficult. We do not intend to re-open the HQ2 search at this time. We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada. Thank you again to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and the many other community leaders and residents who welcomed our plans and supported us along the way. We hope to have future chances to collaborate as we continue to build our presence in New York over time.

The decision to pull out of NYC comes after New York State lawmakers nominated one of the deal's fiercest opponents to a state board that would grant him the power to unilaterally kill the state component of the incentive package. NYC progressives and "Democratic socialists" like AOC can claim a major victory over their corporate adversaries. Queens real-estate brokers on the other hand are reacting with a mix of "shock, anger and disbelief"...

...As anyone and everyone who could sought to get in on the real estate buying frenzy, as speculators snapped up condos in the area.

However, New Yorkers who opposed the Amazon deal will probably be disappointed to find that driving away the e-commerce giant won't help fix the subway.

The prospect of luring Amazon to NYC was an all-consuming project for the Democrats who run the state. Cuomo and de Blasio set aside their fierce rivalry to work together to court Amazon, we wonder who will be the first to point the finger at their rival as what we imagine will become one of the most epic blame games in the history of New York politics.

Because it looks like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has taken a break from snapping dick pics to send Cuomo and de Blasio a giant middle finger.
After announcing that it was canceling its New York City headquarters plans the day before, Amazon announces that it will keep its second headquarters in Virginia.