Amazon scraps Queens headquarters after fierce backlash

Amazon abruptly cancelled its plans to build a major campus in Long Island City on Thursday, walking away from a deal that would have brought an estimated 25,000 jobs to Queens after months of intense local opposition — a stunning reversal that stunned City Hall and Albany alike.

In a statement, the company said it would not build the headquarters in New York after a number of state and local politicians had made clear they opposed the project and the incentives attached to it. Amazon said it had no plans to reopen the search and would proceed with its other new campus in Virginia.

The decision was a dramatic victory for the activists, union leaders and local officials who had mobilised against the deal, arguing that the nearly $3 billion in subsidies was a giveaway to a trillion-dollar company and that the project would worsen congestion and gentrification. State Senator Michael Gianaris had been a vocal opponent.

Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, who had championed the deal, blamed a small group of politicians for driving away jobs and investment. Cuomo warned it would damage the state's reputation with business.

The episode laid bare a deep rift in the city's politics between an establishment focused on attracting corporate investment and an ascendant progressive movement sceptical of subsidies and wary of unchecked development. It became a defining fight over what kind of growth New York wanted.